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THE EPILOGUE: THE WORLD COULD BE MUCH SILLIER
I grew up watching Monty Python and Steve Martin. This was a steady stream of "smart silly". Clearly intelligent people that created absurd situations and made comedy out of them. While I had a deep appreciation for Bill Murray and Chevy Chase just approaching everything with sarcasm and a removal from the norms of society I wasn't moved in the same way as I was by Python and Martin. A twit of the year contest or trying to suck a stool through a straw just really resonated with me then and now. Nothing was funny about The Spanish Inquisition until you see Michael Palin burst into a room and list of their tools and traits and botch the list! Steve Martin explaining when he went to France they called this by that name and this by that name "it is like they have a different word for everything!". Comedy and silliness gave me a way to frame the world. There were always serious things happening, but you could typically find some humor in them or face them that way.
Most folks you meet are walking around with a very serious face, in a very serious manner, trying to do some serious and important stuff! Rushing to their appointments! This morning a car drove onto the grass in an imaginary lane to get around the car in front of him. Was a pregnant wife in the back or was this just an early sales meeting? The folks on the news? Super serious. This new thing will kill you! You might have already be dead, just keep watching till ten please, we might save your life! More during our top story tonight! These folks are incredibly mad at these folks who are one hundred percent mad at the other folks in return! "You can't let the Russian ambassador into the war room he will see the big map!!!" (Dr. Strangelove could come out tomorrow it is that good and relevant, if you have not seen it, it is on Amazon Prime right now, stop reading and watch it! You are welcome! Can a parenthetical be longer than the original sentence? No? Well too bad!!!). If you just observe faces as you walk around, you are going to see a lot of stress and strain with the occasional brightness of a rebel enjoying their life! Sad faces, angry faces, confused faces, and determined faces walking so quickly towards their destination! It really appears that most people are not having a good time at all. My face often resembles a person who remembered that they set their house on fire. An old coworker once remarked "poor Keith, always so disappointed with everything". I have to say though I see a lot more happy faces in here because no offense to Disney land but um we are one of the happier places on earth. Not that we don't get serious folks who CANNOT believe! We do not have this, that or the other! "You don't have this kind of cream liqueur????" But for the most part it is a sea of smiling faces here.
I don't think everything is a joke and nothing should be taken seriously. I'm one of the most serious people you will ever meet but I don't think I was meant to be. I think I was meant to be an incredibly silly person that would wear bright clothing and speak with a Welsh accent on every other Thursday, but my childhood steered me right into frowny face town and the world did the rest. Oh sure I can see a beautiful sunset and soak it in, but then it's back to the business of doubt and self-loathing! You remembered to take the umbrella with you in the car, BUT then you left it in the car and got soaked. That's funny. If you don't know how to laugh at yourself, you're really missing out. When you're totally stressed out, trying to literally carry six things at once and trying to run at the same time, you look absurd, and you are absurd, the person watching you is not seeing an illusion, you are in fact doing some kind of crab like juggling act for reasons unclear to anyone but yourself. If you watched a video of it you would say "ha! Look at that idiot, take two trips!" You might have very good reasons for attempting such a scramble but that doesn't remove the ridiculousness. It is also doesn't mean you are a terrible and flawed person. 99% of the things we do are based on the current situation, the original plan might have been almost fool proof but then one of the billion variable intervened and now they are blocking you at the airport because your ticket says Haze Keith, instead of Keith Haze! "Okay I obviously put my name in the online boxes in the wrong order, but I am in fact Keith Haze, and as a matter of fact I'm Haze, Keith as well!"
Also, and most importantly, there's nothing wrong with being silly! One should not be afraid to look ridiculous the important part is to have a sense of humor about it. Maybe your OCD wants you to alphabetize the entire world and there is no stopping that compulsion but you can still have a laugh about it. In the UK they call it taking the piss. If you have found yourself incapable of laughing at yourself your mates can handle it for you. "oh look I'm Keith Haze and I can't enjoy this amazing tequila unless I have the right glass for it. Yes, I want some of your white burgundy but it is seven degrees too warm so I must put it in the fridge for 12 minutes. No thanks I won't enjoy your bottle of Port Ellen because it is the summer and I don't drink peat in the summer". I'm a ridiculous person for a huge number of reasons and I can defend all of those accusations with reasons but i'm still a silly large man. I don't hold my pinky in the air and drink Silver Oak, I just want my wine decanted, my whiskey proofed down with water instead of ice, and the sweet sounds of silence to amplify my enjoyment of things. If you don't realize that you are an odd duck when you are strongly lobbying for your personal prejudices you need to do a little more self work. Frequently a soon to be married person will inform me that they don't want to buy whiskey for their wedding because they personally do not drink whiskey. I hear you but it is the number one selling product in the store so it is a mathematical certainty that your guests do. What is also certain is that no less than twenty percent of them have been dragged there and so the least you can do is give them some whiskey!
The serious lot also tend to be the selfish lot. Rules upon rules that must be followed and followed precisely and if there is no order than there can only be chaos and if there is chaos then the world will actually end! The silly might rarely make sense upon close inspection but it is often direly needed. You don't want your doctor to tell jokes about how much drinking they did the night before and how little sleep they have been getting and then show you their shaking hands. Or maybe you do!! Maybe you are like clearly this woman is not nervous at all, and is going to slice me open with ease because they are making jokes at a designated non joke time. The airport deeply frowns upon being silly because flying is serious stuff! But it is hard to be dignified when we are taking our shoes off and the tenth person is getting groped. Push the walker to the side this is a random scan. If Grandma wants to blow up the plane and has managed to smuggle in a well hidden bomb, I say let her. (exactly the kind of silliness that is not allowed at the airport). "Your captain today is Daniel Johnson". "Oh no, I flew with him before, we were going to Miami and landed in Cleveland! Booo boooo give us someone else!" The red zone is for loading and loading and all humor is prohibited at this establishment, if you wish to tell a joke please go to the designated area which is anywhere outside of this building removed from earshot. Not not shot, ear hearing area distance space receptive area audible distinguishable situation.
When you're a kid at least one person in class had something funny to say and it was much more interesting than i before e, except after c. Todd Mayo farted last period and the entire class could hear it! How about the smell? Did anyone faint? Nothing is a bigger buzzkill when everyone is laughing and Sam the Eagle stops by and starts explaining how silly you are all being! You are going to have days when nothing feels funny or silly at all, and the hope is you have some packed away and find some more to recharge once you get through it. There is no such thing as laughing too much. But we apologize when we do. "i'm sorry I just think that was so funny". What we should say is "it sucks you don't find it amusing so you can enjoy it with me". The Irish Comedian, Tommy Tiernan has a great bit about his friends Dad dieing when they were kids and one of them getting the giggles during the funeral "Brandon's Dad is dead, Brendon has no dad" Not funny right? Maybe even cruel? But what can we do? The tension has to go somewhere and laughter is often the healthiest and sometimes the only option.
The silly does not pounce on a person. The silly is not there to demean, hurt, attack, or destroy. The silly is there to lighten the load. Yes, you are about to fail out of law school but it is only because you were going to be a terrible lawyer. You didn't fail to understand because you are too stupid, you failed to understand because the person explaining it had no interest in you understanding. They were so serious they forgot they were not talking to a peer. You're not a bad person because you thought everyone hated you because you brought carrot cake instead of a real dessert. Everyone already knew they couldn't count on you and loves you anyway. You have lots of excellent non dessert based qualities. Stanley Kubrick made Shelly Duvall's hair fall out and then probably used take number two, the man was NOT silly. But lighting a scene with thousands of candles in a movie is ridiculous. Dr. Strangelove = Masterpiece. Barry Lyndon = famous for having a scene lit with tons of candles. Bullies are not silly. Silly does not make targets out of the disadvantaged. Silly brings levity to the stiff. Silly reminds us that life is fragile and wonderful at the same time.
I don't want my distiller goofing around when it is time to make the booze. I just don't want them to think that they have the only distillery in the world. Be serious about your craft but also know that instead of carrying slabs of cinder blocks up a hill you are detecting notes of butterscotch and wild dandelions. Folks frequently expect me to be a fascist about booze, but I drank thirty year old scotch straight from the bottle like a filthy heathen! Will probably never do that again, but I'm glad I did it once (twice, okay we finished the bottle). You get stuck with someone and you think oh no this is going to be terrible and then they make a joke and it is like magic. Okay this lady is alright, we are going to get along just fine! You make a mistake and you are waiting to get pounced on and the guy makes a joke and you are relieved and amused, remusedalive! Take that spell check, your bright red lines obviously do not scare me!
What you should take seriously is we only have these precious moments in life and they will be greatly amplified by your joy and laughter! If somewhere in the panic and hyperventilating moment you look in the mirror and make a silly face and say "Luke, I am your father, the force is strong with you, and you need a shave." you will be doing better. I traveled across town to Mere's cheese shop because I refused to put some awful melting cardboard into my quiche and bought two quality cheeses and they worked out great. I know a lot of people might find it absurd but I found it delicious, and I'm quite happy to posses that kind of absurdity. The day I shrug and just dump the processed crap in there and don't even at least make fun of myself for it, will be a sad day. Found on my porch guzzling boones farm and eating cheeze whiz on stale Triscuits muttering about how I used to use Glencairn glasses you can just grab me by the shoulders and play me a clip of Anthony Bourdain talking about anything! The man was the master of balancing silly and the pursuit of quality.
You are told of two guests that will be joining the evening. One is super serious and the other is a silly pants. Who are you excited about coming? Which one do you want to sit next to? Which one do you want to be? Sit me next to the silly one and we will have a laugh at the serious folks because thank goodness we can. As long as their is laughter let the alarm clock go ahead and go off again and again. If we lose our ability to laugh, to make light of things, make fun of ourselves, and find the humor in a situation then that is a sad day and a sad life. Just close your eyes and picture John Cleese doing the silly walk.
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