In Jonathon Flaum’s article Finding your Howl, he tells a story of a red wolf named Mumon. Mumon was kept in captivity for his childhood and into his adult life to protect him, because the species was almost extinct. He was able to escape his enclosure and make his way out into the wild. He knew that in order for all the other wolves to have a leader and survive, he needed to be able to howl. After an encounter with a deer and a raven, he realized that his howl was always a part of him and just needed to go through the trials of life to get to it.
Jonathon Fluam’s Article is all about going through trials in order to achieve greatness. These trials often involve loosing part of ourselves in order to escalate to a greater version of our being.
In my life, one huge part of myself that I have had to leave behind is my seriousness. I used to be very one track minded about everything I did. I was anal and always on edge. I never had a sense of humor when trying to get something done. This made every task seem harder and more difficult to get through. The rapper Eminem once said, “A lot of truth is said in jest.” This quote was pivotal in helping to mold and shape me into the creative person I am today.
Most of what people say is truthful. Often times it can be perceived as harsh or rude. Having a sense of humor about truth can make all the difference in how you respond to the world. When you are able to take potentially self-esteem damaging comments with a grain of salt and try to understand what the person is really getting at, you can better yourself and usually have a laugh or two in the process.
An example of this in my own life happened just recently. A friend of mine was writing a comedy sketch about having a sense of humor about stereotypes and being able to laugh at yourself. The premise was a story that followed a residential advisor as he visited each of his residents on move in day. Each room that he visited was going to portray a certain social stereotype. He read the story to me a a group of my friends and I personally thought it was very clever and very funny. One of my friends however became indignant and stormed from the room. We went to find her and asked her why she was so upset. She said that the portrayal of the stereotypical female as overly sensitive and self-righteous was offensive. We explained to her that it was all in fun, but also that there was an irony to that immediate situation. She, a female, was acting exactly as my friend had written in his story. This was him writing the truth, but in a way that was not overly serious and was something to be laughed at. My friend came around eventually was able to also see the humor in the situation. She opened her mind to not being so defensive around social truths.
Like my friend, who used truthful humor in a creative way, I too have been much less inhibited. When I am writing a script or helping produce a video, I am much less concerned about offending someone and am more concerned about putting out a good final product. If I was to worry about offending someone then nothing would get accomplished. There will always be someone out there that is uptight and has no sense of humor about the world. As long as I do, however, I will be much happier with what I create and will be able to focus on creating something that sends a truthful message, hopefully with a little bit of humor too.
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