I have tried to explain my view of the origin of our Mind. How it brought us to believe in our superiority, and how absurd and dangerous this is. If the Mind and its illusions of grandeur are able to create psychosomatic problems and mental disorders, then a sense of humour, by deriding the Mind and its follies, should be able to breed sanity and health.
Swift was right when he said that, "The best doctors in the world are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merryman". Centuries earlier, the famous Salernitan Medical School advised similar cures for a healthy life, "Mens laeta, requies, moderata diaeta", ("cheerfulness, quietude and moderate diet"). Hippocrates, one of the first known physicians, advised the medical profession to present themselves to their patients in a happy and pleasant manner, and The Bible advises: "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine."
Humour is a remedy with the best possible side effects. The humorousare more able to cope with the foibles of human nature, and therefore more content, more loving and therefore more loveable, more in touch with reality, and therefore wiser.
Medical science has an explanation for this. Our bodies release adrenalin when perceived danger makes it necessary for us to have a burst of speed, or strength, it focuses all our efforts on survival to the exclusion of other sensations, such as pain,fear or doubt. Our Mind's excessive doubts, anxieties and fears are forcing our bodies to release adrenalin, whether it is needed or not. During an adrenalin 'rush' we are also cut off from pleasure, appreciation of beauty or peacefulness, adrenalin will not allow us to rest until we feel safe, and it exhausts us. It makes us appear aggressive, unapproachable, and actually ugly.
Humour, on the other hand, releases dopamine and serotonin, which, in the correct dosages, releases tension and allows us to relax and feel at peace. When we are in this state, we perceive more of the world around us, and appear more approachable and attractive.
As I have pointed out, stress, caused by our Mind's excessive pretensions and aspirations,has been linked to many of our modern diseases. Asense of humour can reduce the Mind's uncertainty, and all its manifestations, which cause stress.
At the core of humour lies self-ridicule, in which intelligence and common sense gets the better of infatuation and pretension. We all have the capacity to mock our wishful imaginings and to realise that the most laughable of them all is self-infatuation.
Self-ridicule eliminates the fear we have of making fools of ourselves, of appearing ridiculous. "No man is laughable who laughs at himself", suggested Seneca. On the other hand those who live in constant fear of ridicule become, ironically, ever more ridiculous.
A sense of humour can help cure many mental disorders manufactured by the Mind, since behind these disorders we often find an inflated ego living in constant fear of failure to live up to its own expectations.Patients with mental disorders often lack a sense of humour and by helping them to find one, we enable them to deflate their ego, reduce their fearand see their circumstances from a more good humoured and rational perspective.
Many mental disorders are imbedded in adolescence and are revived by the recurrence of the adolescent mentality, which can happen any time throughout adulthood to old age.
During adolescence the Mind begins to place faith in wishful beliefs and pretensions. This increases a sense of self-righteousness, which in turn increases tension and emotions, which limit or distort the brain's rationality, cutting us off from our inherent instincts and intuition. In extreme cases this can bring about a mental disorder, such as fanaticism and obsession; building castles in the air can be amusing, but living in them can be positively insane.
Medical Science frequently attributes the following symptoms to mental disorders: Anxiety, melancholia and pessimism, irritability, loss of appetite and sexual potency, insomnia, high blood pressure, palpitations, hyperventilation, sweating, pallor, restlessness, dizziness, malaise, disorientation, aches, pains, skin rashes, insensitivity to the problems of others, lack of sympathy or humaneness, lack of consideration or understanding, lack of good humour, or asense of humour or gratitude,lack of flexibility and adaptability and a reduced efficiency of sensory perception. However, these are the results of neuro-endocrine activity created by anxieties and fears generated by the Mind.
It is a common claim that mental disorders stem from a 'failure to adapt', but, if viewed in the context of humour, this failure to adapt is in reality the failure of self-fulfilment on the part of selfish individuals, their failure to assert their Mind's strategy of a self-opinionated ego. The adolescent mentality decrees that everyone has what amounts to a sacred right to self-love, self-centredness and unlimited pretentiousness, and, what is more, a further right, that of the fulfilment of their egotistical self-reflection.
A sense of humour swiftly exposes a mental disorder as a game of self-deception, and nothing is more derisory than an individual attempting to fulfil himself beyond his capability.
Mind-created mental disorders are most often brought about by an over-pretentious ego. A nervous breakdown, for example, usually strikes those who have sunk into a morass of hopelessness. Hopelessness is an affliction caused mainly by an excess of hopefulness. A healthy propensity for self-ridicule can stop the destructive process in its tracks.
In the preface to 'The Battle of The Books', Swift wrote"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own...".
Our Mind invented satire and irony by which we deride or debase the absurd or irrational Minds of others, in order to reduce our fear of them, which creates enemies. We seldom, however, practice self-satire, self-irony or self-derision, whereby our sense of humour, by example, holds up a crystal-clear mirror, enabling others to see themselves.
Statistics reveal that single people are more liable to have nervous breakdowns, and closer inspection might reveal that the cause of their solitary existence is selfishness. Selfishness and pretentiousness prevent integration, togetherness and communication. Living within a family or a community is one of the best therapies for this malaise, since interaction with others requires self-sacrifice and the submission of the pretentious ego.
Phobias are fears, which grow in proportion to the Mind's increasing sense of self-importance and detachment from reality.
"Depression is suffered by people who see no reason to like themselves; depression is a state of self-hate." wrote an English authoress who's subsequent suicide was attributed to depression.
Self-hate is often the consequence of excessive self-love, as an excessive self-love is barren and leads to frustration and disillusionment, and suicides.
Our insatiable Mind urges us to perform to the point of exhaustion, which leaves us susceptible to total physical or even mental collapse. An animal, on the other hand, will stop chasing its prey before it reaches this point. It needs some reserves to be able to defend itself if threatened, or to be able to recover its energy quickly in order to chase again if the opportunity arises.
Instead of pushing ourselves to this point of exhaustion, humour, by making us see ourselves as laughable, can warn us to put on the breaks.
The Mind's concept of individual freedom exposes its irrationality. We humans push ourselves to exhaustion in pursuit of this illusion, committing increasingly amoral and irresponsible acts in the process. In our attempts to rectify the mistakes of our Mind's excesses, we punish the miscreants and impose laws to try to eliminate our mistakes, but this does not work, it merely produces a population more fearful of the law than the outcome of the crime. Only a sense of humour, by ridiculing such dangerous conduct, can enlighten us.
The numerous ways described here,in which our Mind creates vicious circles of uncertainty, doubt and fear leading to excesses, extremes, and unrealisable desires, which in turn generate more anxiety, doubt and fear, has produced a generation of sad people.
Sadness is infectious, and almost pandemic amongst the young in the West.
Next time you see a young person using their mobile phone, just watch them for a while, and notice how long they talk or remain silent.
It is curious that most of the time they appear to be talking, not listening. In fact, if you see someone either listening to a phone, or with an earpiece or headphones on, you will most probably imagine they are listening to music or a message, but not to another person speaking. It is now in the Western culture to make these assumptions because without realising it we are not making conversation, but just making contact. This is the desperation of our uncertain and isolated Mind's need to pacify its fear of loneliness caused by our pursuit of our 'right' to individual freedom.
Evidence of the Western World 's sadness is also found in our need to consume alcohol, narcotic drugs, sleeping pills, painkillers and the number of suicides.
There is sadness in our increasingly obsessive journeys towards enjoyment, pleasure, excitement and entertainment, which, when exhausted, creates anti-climax which brings more sadness with it.
Popular music and songs appear to be mostly laments, rather than expressions of the joys of life.
Western sadness is damaging our quality of life as it increases indifference and apathy, as it diminishes loving, empathy and compassion, as it is increasingly more selfish and cruel, as it leads to isolation and social blindness.
Sadness is attracted by deconstruction, destruction, pessimism and catastrophe, which are pathetic and comic.
In fact, Western sadness could bring an end to Western man. His disappearance, however, would not bring many tears to the eyes of the remaining human population nor would the rest of Nature mourn.
An appropriate epitaph might be:
"Here lies Western Man.Since he is at peace, all Nature lives in peace".
HUMOUR is such sweet medicine and our only salvation, it would be the ultimate folly not to take it in large doses. Unless we learn to laugh, and laugh loudly at our Mind's pretensions, the last laugh will be on us.
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