Does the innocence of laughter and humor decrease with the harsh realism of reality?

Question

The other day I was with my daughter and she was laughing so enduringly at the sound of “quack quack” the ducks make. It caused me to think how our laughter changes as we mature and grasp an understanding of the world around us. Do you think laughter and humor decreases in its innocence as we mature and lose that simplistic view of the world and come to understand reality?

Answer 1

Sort of . . . .  

Clearly, laughter and humor themselves do not diminish.  What diminishes is our ability to find the humor in such simple things.  By contrast, a very complex humorous situation can arise that might make you or me laugh our socks off, but your small daughter would not be capable of understanding it.  In that case, the humor would be lost on her.

I believe that laughter and humor somehow remain independent of any "harsh realism", which exists at every level.  Children experience their own brand of harsh realism.  That's where temper tantrums come from.  The "innocence" of which you speak is really just a lack of sophistication -- a lack of "scheming and conniving" but also a lack of basic understanding of the workings of one's environment.

And isn't funny how we can find so much humor in the fact that a little girl can find so much humor in the quacking of a duck!

Answer 2

Yes it does decrease over time but there will always be another tickler.

Answer 3

I've thought of that before...

When i was a kid, the word "p**p" had me rolling on the floor, I'm sure my parents would remember my earlier comedic interests [hope i worded that correctly. today's not exactly my day for good grammar.]

But I do think that.

On and on, things I found funny were more sketchy, and offensive, I guess.

Now that I think of it, I may want to rethink on what I find funny.  

Answer 4

Of course it does. When we are young, we are fragile and with little understanding. But as we grow we gain knowledge and understanding and  as we contemplate our lives and the world, we fail to see the humor in a ducks 'quack quack' which we would have seen when we were young.

Answer 5

Yes, but that isn't a bad thing. As your model of reality becomes more subtle and complex there are always new "quack quack's" that can delight us. If you reach a stage where there is no new subtlty or complexity you feel you can acheive and innocent laughter is gone perhaps you are holding onto things too tightly and need to let go. Being open will always being new joyful experiences to us.

Answer 6

Reality is love and joy. In illusion lies pain and suffering.

Answer 7

yeah, i think it does.

answer mine:

http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

Answer 8

As our understanding of the world changes so does what we find humorous.  Nothing is lost, it just changes into another form.  But laughter itself never changes, it is and will always be food for the soul.

Answer 9

It doesn't have to. If you aren't afraid of looking foolish (which you shouldn't be), there are plenty of opportunities to find joy in simple and innocent pleasures.

The world would be a better place if everyone did.