Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.
- BILL COSBY
It doesn’t take a professional therapist to know that humor is one of the finest coping mechanisms that the human animal has ever had the good fortune of learning.
Filipinos, more than any other people in my limited experience, have the greatest wealth of humor and its appreciation at their disposal (at par with the Latin Americans, probably). When we dislike what we see around us, our primary reflex is to ridicule it with comments, posters, skits, funny text messages, blogs, YouTube videos, Twitter statuses, and even TV commercials.
Humor is a cool way of telling the truth without being too emotionally transfixed in its ugliness. As a modest people, this is our chosen method of communication, allowing us to avoid the risk of judgment or rejection. We joke about things we casually and instinctively cannot talk about, especially the big four: money, sex, politics, and religion. It makes life easier to take in and our ideas easier to let out.
Knowing who and how we are today, it’s not hard to imagine the Katipuneros of olden times bursting into laughter after one of their members let out a non-so-quiet fart during one of their solemn strategic meetings.
It’s not difficult to think about Dr. Rizal laughing at the funny accents of his fellow Illustrados in Europe while giving their fiery speeches during one of their many dinner parties.
It is not far-fetched to picture Lapu-Lapu's warriors pointing and laughing hysterically at the flamboyantly dressed Spanish soldiers as they landed on the shores of Mactan Island, just before their deadly skirmish.
Humor makes us a malleable people that will not snap with the harsh daily pressures. It doesn’t mean we take nothing seriously – only that our understanding and acceptance of the things we see, hear and experience is cautious and cushioned by a filter of laughter.
We have never had a superior army against a foreign power. So our foreparents scampered away like vermin only to strike again at the next opportune time. A humorless lot cannot pull that off and sustain it for many months at a time.
We never had the wealth of our neighbors, and so we are forced to find riches in our imagination. Without humor, many of us would have jumped off our many cliffs or hung ourselves under our many trees.
We are fortunate in our ability to detach from the material world and appreciate the best in any situation. We are strong in our ability to sidestep danger and dodge pain. We are wise in our ability to search for the truth without emotionally overheating. This is how we survive.
Because of all these, in spite of all the frustrations, and regardless of all the insecurities, we are still one of the happiest people on Earth.
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