If someone makes a joke in the woods…

… and no one is there to hear it, is it funny?

A venerable friend once commented that a message I sent him was too funny not to be shared. But can humor really be wasted? Is it like money in that famous line from Hello Dolly… "Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow." Just how big of an audience does humor need?

In the course of my average day, there are numerous things that make me laugh. Sometimes the humor comes from an outside source, such as every time someone on television says “new-cue-lar” (which is pretty often lately). But most commonly the thought originates in my own head and never escapes from the deep, dark, twisted recesses of my brain. Occasionally, I’ll have the urge to tell the dog about whatever it is that’s cracking me up, but unless it contains the words “walk”, “frisbee”, “squirrel”, or “Sadie”, she rarely finds it very amusing. And even if I did share it with another person, would they laugh at it? Or would it be just one of those “you had to be there” type things, with the “there” being inside my skull?

Which leads to the question of why people’s sense of humor varies so greatly… I’ve always assumed that it is due to life experiences and how one is raised (nurture instead nature). Outside of immediate family, I’ve only known a few people who I would say are totally in sync with my (rather eccentric) sense of humor. RWT and I certainly do not always agree on what is funny. I love movies in the style of Airplane, but he gets far more amusement from watching me laugh at them (however, he does like Monty Python flicks, so go figure). On the other hand, RWT thinks it is hilarious to mislead people as to my real personality (such as convincing a co-worker that I was a biker-chick with tattoos) and cracks up when they finally meet me. Obviously, for me, this tends to lead more toward confusion than laughter.

But I read in the newspaper last week they’ve found the part of the brain that controls the ability to understand sarcasm (click). So physiology is involved in at least certain aspects of humor and this could explain why most men find The Three Stooges funny, but women generally do not. Or why puns seem to be the humor of choice for so many engineers and scientists – maybe the pun-humor area is located next to the mathematical/analytical thinking area? (And this finding could really help me understand the behavior of some of my in-laws…especially since I’ve always suspected the possibility of brain damage.)

Perhaps the bottom line is that when humor is shared with a larger audience, there is more a chance that it will really resonate with someone. However, my point of view is that humor is not wasted if it brightens the day of just one person. And even if I am the only one laughing.