Laughing at pain as a way to rise above it (Catch-22, Alan Watts' jester).
Where it comes up 11
Within this theme 57
Concepts 9
- Existential Kink
The idea that we create and secretly 'get off on' our own suffering because we gain something from it, and that humans want the dark and the grungy as much as the light. Nev says that once…
- Sincerity vs Seriousness
From Alan Watts' jester: meet life's obstacles sincerely, with respect, but don't take them so seriously that they drown you.
- Inner Child
The childhood self of daydreams, curiosity and play. Ian notes that adults asked what makes them happy usually name things they did at eight. Tamir says real wonder comes from the 'curious…
- Pinball as a metaphor for life
From Murakami's Pinball, 1973: every game ends in a loss and the machine just says replay; the point is not the score but self-transformation through the wins and losses, so build your own…
- Pain as Beginning
Grant's answer to whether pain fuels great writing: pain is not the end but the beginning; what matters is what you do with it, ideally rising above it with humor.
- Comedy removes the veil of seriousness
Tamir defines comedy as discussing the serious business while removing the veil of seriousness to see what it really is. It ties to Watts's 'pretentious nonsense' dissolving in laughter and…
- Irreducible Rascality
Alan Watts's phrase for the mischievous, never fully tamed element Jung recognized in himself. It showed as a 'twinkle in his eye', and Watts saw it as a sign of real integration rather…
- Internal Jester and King
Tamir's reading of Watts: as you grow older and wiser, your inner king and inner jester draw closer until they become one, so you can laugh at your own misfortune sooner.
- Taking the piss
British banter ('taking the mickey'). Tamir says it's common in England, Australia, Texas and New York and painfully absent in Canada. Colin praises Vonnegut as great at it.
Books 3
- Pinball, 1973
Murakami's second kitchen-table novella; Tamir misremembers the year in the title as 1984 or 1983.
- This Is It
Alan Watts's essay collection 'This Is It and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience'. Tamir reads its preface aloud: it argues that the spiritual can't be separated from the…
- Catch-22
Heller's war novel about the horror of war, told with irony and sarcasm. Grant's model for laughing at pain in order to stay human.
People 7
- Alan Watts
British-American popularizer of Eastern philosophy; Tamir cites his lecture on the court jester about taking life sincerely rather than seriously.
- Kurt Vonnegut
American novelist and one of Grant's favourite authors; Grant saw him speak in Toronto in the 1990s. Cited for saying reading was his version of meditation, and (by Tamir) for his talk on…
- Franz Kafka
Tamir asks whether Kafka's absurdity parallels their talk of enigmas. Tyler describes Kafka as crippled by his father yet turning pain into art, a 'special species of happiness', and says…
- Dwayne Johnson
Colin's example of someone with a trigger who still rolls with the joke. On Ellen, Kevin Hart teased him and he shot back a punchline instead of losing it. Colin also loves his movie line…
- Kevin Hart
Colin loves that he finds humor in everything. He kept teasing The Rock on Ellen until he got a comeback.
- Joseph Heller
Author of Catch-22, whose ironic humor about war is Grant's model for laughing at pain.
- Ronaldinho
Former Brazilian soccer star remembered for always smiling and playing for fun, even as his team was being knocked out of the World Cup. Tamir compares Sheela's lightness and joy to him.
Quotes 8
The pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in laughter.
Even if you hit a high score, the end of every pinball game is a loss. You can't actually win the pinball game.
When you find out your existential kink and everyone's existential kink, it's no longer dark. It becomes fun. You can play with it because now you see yourself and you're not owned by that shadow any longer.
It taught me to kind of laugh while my feet are on fire.
Sincerity is authenticity. It's understanding what's going on in a lighter way, not in this heavy, fake, pretentious type of way.
The point of Dance Dance Dance is just do it. Do whatever you can.
If I have to indulge in what? Then maybe I go for a margarita or a glass of champagne.
A diary is feelings, a journal is thoughts.
Insights 8
- Curiosity, not courage, carries you through
The fear of the unknown never disappears, but for people who truly want to change, curiosity outweighs it. This is the curiosity children have before adults teach them that everything is…
- Dark stories hold the profound lessons
Most songs are about love, heartbreak or sex, but great books are drawn to darkness, and inside the darkness, if you look, is black humor that teaches you how to survive.
- Find the payoff in your suffering
Suffering we insist is 'outside of me' is often suffering we create because we get something from it. Naming that payoff, your existential kink, takes away its darkness and turns it into…
- Happiness lives in what you did at eight
Ask adults what makes them happy and most name things they did at eight, before life's accumulated 'crap' hardened them. Childhood interests are a map back to the real self.
- Pain is a starting point, not a muse
Dwelling on pain until it becomes an obsession leads to Dazai's dead end. Pain is fuel for becoming something, and humor lets you stand above it.
- Pinball is played for transformation, not score
You can't anticipate wins or losses, but you can anticipate your practice; the purpose of playing is to be transformed by the highs and the drops, then hit replay.
- Closing off the lows closes off the highs
The highs feel good because the lows feel low; mask and distract from the losses and you also lose the capacity to experience the wins, and refusing to play at all is dying at 30.
- Tragedy-to-comedy time shrinks with age
A sign of growing wiser is that the gap between something awful happening and it becoming a funny story shrinks, from months or years to a day.
Practices 3
- Embodying your shadow
In a group, describe a shadow trait, give it a character's shape, then deliberately become it for about 60 seconds, improv-style; returning to a normal stance afterward leaves you feeling…
- Build your own pinball practice
Since you can't anticipate wins or losses, design your own daily practice, unique to you, as an operating system for self-transformation.
- Laugh at your pain
Rather than squeezing pain for all it's worth, look at it and try to laugh at it, to rise above it.
Stories 14
- Four hours defending RoboCop
Grant's friend Zoltán, a bartender at an arty cinema-pub in Budapest, spent an entire evening off arguing for four hours with another man that RoboCop is the best film ever made, which…
- SAS soldiers wearing American flags
Colin recounts an interview with a Navy SEAL who, as a newcomer, saw British SAS soldiers in the chow line wearing American flags. Asked why, they said, 'You've got to blame it on somebody…
- How can we be against marriage unmarried?
Every evening Sheela and Chinmaya ate sitting back to back on the floor of her little room, talking and philosophizing, as long as it was logical. One night they agreed they couldn't be…
- The Rock and Kevin Hart on Ellen
On Ellen, Kevin Hart kept needling Dwayne Johnson. When it came up that Johnson had just had another baby girl, Hart joked about him not producing boys. A visibly annoyed Johnson replied…
- The London Drugs confession booth
Tamir found a gag mini confession booth at London Drugs, with curtains and seats. Press the button, it says 'tell me your sins', then 'you are forgiven'. Its booklet on confessing got him…
- 'Anything with a dragon is stupid'
Grant told an English student named Attila, who called Game of Thrones the best television ever made, that anything with a dragon is stupid. The student was insulted; Grant asked what kind…
- A mother's 'no, that's dangerous'
Nev remembers her mother's intense fear response, a constant 'No, no, no, that's dangerous'. She uses it to show how childhood curiosity gets punished and dulled as we grow older.
- Barry Sonnenfeld sat in that chair
Tamir tells Grant that director Barry Sonnenfeld, the Coen Brothers' longtime cinematographer, recently sat in the same studio chair, and jokes that some Hollywood luck may rub off.
- Dad already knew Marcus Aurelius
Tamir gave his father a Hebrew translation of the Meditations. After a couple of chapters his dad said, 'I already know all of this', and when asked if he liked it, 'I don't know, it's…
- Falling asleep at morning discourses
Asked what besides her parents shaped her, Sheela says Bhagwan's teachings added a lot, though she went to his discourses every morning and often fell asleep on the floor. Tamir jokes she…
- Married over a lost bet, and mid-flight
Of her two later marriages, Sheela says she married once because she lost a bet, and once because she fell in love again, with the wedding performed by the pilot on a flight to India.
- Mint sauce in Holland
Driving in Holland past fields of baby lambs, Colin cooed at how sweet they were. His companion answered 'and nice with mint sauce'. Colin uses it as an example of someone cutting in on…
- Ten Timbits
On his first visit to Canada, Colin tried Timbits (10 for $3.19) and ate all ten before reaching his brother's house: 'ashamed of myself, but also quite pleased'. It leads into banter about…
- Tyler's mock BetterHelp ad
Asked to improvise an ad for BetterHelp while Tamir refilled the tea, Tyler pitched himself instead: farm kids have great work ethic and he can pull a calf, so if civilization collapses he…
Films, music and art 4
- Seinfeld
Tamir uses the sitcom to argue that even complainers can be likeable when they're authentic: you wouldn't hire any of them, but you might be friends with them or write them into a story, as…
- Back to School
1986 comedy starring Rodney Dangerfield. Kurt Vonnegut has a cameo in which Dangerfield's rich character hires him to write his son's essay on Vonnegut. Colin cites it as proof of what a…
- Alan Watts's court jester lecture
Watts on why kings kept a court jester: to remind the king of his own mortality and that things are not as they seem. Tamir links it to Tyler's point that tragedy becomes comedy faster as…
- The Joker
Alan Watts lecture on the court jester, whose role was to keep people from taking life too seriously and to take it sincerely instead; Tamir links it to Grant's call to laugh at pain.
Organizations and movements 1
- Special Air Service
British special forces. Colin recounts a Navy SEAL's interview praising the SAS for always finding something to lighten the mood even in firefights. It's his example of soldiers who took…