Frontiers Friday #126: Humour (Part IV)š¤Ŗāļø
The final punchline and poignant tales from the Frontiers.
Hereās the final installment on the topic of Humour from Frontiers Friday.
š½ Watch:Ā Tig
I was not familiar with Tig Notaroās work before this Netflix documentary.
Hereās the brief: After comedian Tig is diagnosed with stage II breast cancer, she creates a poignant stand-up set that becomes legendary overnight.
Hereās the trailer:š½ Watch:Ā Nanette
Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby show, Nanette is in a class of its own.
How does one make you laugh one minute and move you to tears the next? Her punchlines and personal revelations on gender, sexuality and childhood adversities has re-shaped comedy.
If you havenāt watched this before, I highly recommend that you do.
Hereās a poignant clip:āDo you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from somebody who already exists in the margins? Itās not humility. Itās humiliation.
I put myself down in order to speakā¦ in order to seek permissionā¦ to speak. And I simply will not do that anymore.ā
šShort Read: Majority Affective Disorder, Pleasant Type.
It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder and
be included in future editions of the major diagnostic manuals under
the new name: major affective disorder, pleasant type.
In a review of the relevant literature it is shown that happiness is statisticallyabnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with
a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal
functioning of the central nervous system. One possible objection
to this proposal remainsāthat happiness is not negatively valued.
However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically irrelevant.
~ Author of Doctoring the Mind and Madness Explained, Richard Bentall1, in Journal of Medical Ethics, 1992.
š Laugh:Ā āMom, where did I come from?ā
A six-year-old asked her mother: āMa. Tell me the truth. Where did I come from?ā The ļ¬ustered mother thought, Must I really start explaining the details of sexual reproduction already?
So she asked, āTell me, Debbie, why do you want to know?ā
Debbie said, āCause the kid next door said he came from Melbourne. I wanna know where I come from.āāø Words Worth Contemplating:
Taken from Richard Nisbettās book, Mindware, highlighting the importance of framing:Consider the Trappist monks in two (apocryphal) stories. Monk 1 asked his abbot whether it would be all right to smoke while he prayed. Scandalized, the abbot said, āOf course not; that borders on sacrilege.ā
Monk 2 asked his abbot whether it would be all right to pray while he smoked. āOf course,ā said the abbot, āGod wants to hear from us at any time.āAs Frank Zappa said,
"The most important thing in art is the frame... you have to put a "box" around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?"2
Reflection
Attention is a moral act.
When working with a client, how do you frame your perspective? How do you guide your attention?
When things arenāt resonating, take a laugh, and be willing to change the frame.
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Daryl Chow Ph.D. is the author of The First Kiss, co-author of Better Results, and The Write to Recovery, Creating Impact, and the forthcoming book The Field Guide to Better Results .
The Field Guide to Better Results is coming out soon on 23rd of Mayā23!
The British Psychological Society (BPS) is lucky to have people like Richard Bentall. I wish we did in other countries.
This is taken from Zappaās Essay featured in Creators on Creating, an edited book by Barron, Montuori and Barron, 1997., p. 196.