Honesty and humor are the mainstays that have followed me around my whole life. When I say honesty, I don’t mean George Washington and the apple tree do-gooder stuff, I mean honesty with oneself, the willingness to not let what you wish to be true push aside what actually is true. I have always noticed that people with some of the most obvious problems often do an amazing job of keeping those problems unrecognized. Items overlooked can be covering things like meanness, a slide towards addition-of any kind- or sense of entitlement. Items pushed aside at the end of life can lead to the possibility of making less than ideal decisions because of an unwillingness to accept a situation. I’ve always tried my best to use this strategy, though honestly, I don’t know how successful I’ve been. Also, just knowing something about reality, or yourself, doesn’t mean that you can fix it, but it’s an awfully good start.

I feel like honesty and humor are somehow related and connected to each other. If one starts spinning a story to one’s self, a story that doesn’t model reality well, that story becomes a fragile thing, something that needs wrapping and defending. Humor often involves an acute perception of life combined with a recognition and play on it’s absurdities and inconsistencies. It pops some of the bubbles on the bubble wrap. Perhaps this could be seen as a dangerous thing, depending on one’s strategy. Though I sometimes get myself into trouble in this department, I find that humor is a useful tool for coping and keeping oneself personally honest. I remember an interview where Carol Burnet talks about her humor being developed during and by the dealing with difficult and tragic situations. Of course, everything in moderation.

While writing this, it becomes a little bit unclear to me whether I’m writing more about coping mechanisms or about a life strategy to maintain oneself as a healthy human.