A train ride

 A long train ride to the bus station. There were a few empty seats right in front of where I stood, but they were the ones which are reserved for people with disabilities or with kids. I do not sit on those. It is not a matter of principle, and neither a hill I would die on, but my laziness. It takes an absurd form, where I am okay standing for a while, for the entire trip even; the act of sitting down and then having to get up when someone needs that seat is too tiring for me. It is emotionally tiring, maybe. The whole mental ordeal I go through deciding which one of the new arrivals at every stop needs this seat more than me. The easiest way to avoid that is to stay standing.

Quite a few stops before the end, two mothers get on. One with a boy, probably around 4 or 5 and one with a little baby. The one with the boy, probably a local Dutch lady, pushed a stroller onto the train and in the reserved area.

"There must be some braking mechanism?" She asked.

The other lady hurried over with the baby in her arms and adjusted the brake, and they both sat down in front of each other. Then began a long single channel exchange. The mothers talked to their children in their native languages and to each other in English. I know just enough Dutch and Chinese to recognise when these languages are being spoken, but not enough to make out anything. So I was just restricted to the English parts. They had apparently met at the train station, and got talking. They shared the bond of motherhood, which opened up uncountable conversation topics.

 I think it's beautiful how excited we get when we find someone who not only listens, but understands. How, in our excitement, we want to talk about so many things that the sentences start overlapping. How we smile wide, or frown deep, how every emotion is as real as when we felt it first, when we experienced the thing we are talking about. How the moment seems to pass so quick, but still stays frozen in time; in the memory of each of us, as a genuine human connection. Very social animals, our kind.

    But I did not really pay any attention to the exact details of the conversation, I was too distracted by the kids, as they had devised a new game on the spot. The boy would roll a ball over the stroller to the baby and the baby, in their attempt to grab the ball would inevitably push it back to the boy. I wanted to be a part of their game, it was entertaining. At least more entertaining than the monotonous, post-war Amsterdam suburb we were passing then. It wasn't ugly by any means, but very symmetric and well planned. There was more charm inside the train. The conversation was now only restricted to the two mothers, and it was very animated. The children were also getting more and more competitive about the ball. You could see the frustration building up on the baby's little face each time they failed to grab the ball, rising up to a crescendo. 

    That coach was not too quiet before either, but when the baby started crying it broke a trance. The boy looked confused. I guess he was still processing if his actions were the cause of the wailing. He was trying to hand over the ball but the baby was no longer interested in it. The "harm" had been done. The poor boy could not figure out if there was any way to help in that situation. The mother was trying hard to soothe the baby, while also giving me an apologetic smile. I knew that smile. I had seen it on my mother, when my younger brother used to cry. A smile which also showed the inevitability and helplessness of the situation. Maybe it is a universal thing, to care if strangers around you are getting disturbed by something as natural as a baby's cry. But then, what is for sure universal, is to get disturbed by a baby's cry. Our brains are made to want it to stop, to make sure everything is okay. 

The baby did calm down, but stayed in their mother's arms. Everyone slipped back into the limbo which is a characteristic of trains, the inertia not letting your body realise how fast you are going but slight irregularities in the motion not letting you feel stationary either. My mind wandered. Cooperation, a complex system of empathy, these are kind of the building blocks of our society. Understanding emotions from expressions, being understood, bringing a stranger right into our circle of concern, all beautiful things. But did humans develop such complex systems as a result of trying to live in a settled society or did settled societies with such systems are the only ones which survived? Does their beauty only lie in their practicality? Even animals show empathy, but not as advanced, as intricate as we do. And usually their circle for which it is reserved is very small. But for humans it keeps on enlarging, as we keep interacting with more and more people.  Every day we see, hear, meet people, we weave stories, and then we live them. We feel happy when we make a new friend.  I love this facet of humanity, but do I only love it because I too, am human? Wired to love and appreciate these things? 

Imagine an alien, observing humans interact. Further assume this alien does not have the concept of empathy in their society, however contradictory that sounds. Would they find us being happy by making friends, understanding emotions from a smile, all these things, Beautiful? Practical? Unnecessary? 

For such an interdependent species as ours, can there be any notion of "too much empathy"? 

The train had come to a stop. This was the stop where they had to get off. The lady with the baby still in her arms made her way towards the gate, the other lady offered to bring the stroller, and was trying to undo the brakes. Unsuccessfully. The brakes were makeshift, held in place with a tightly tied cloth. This was a moment of anxiety. The lady with the baby came back hurriedly and tried to undo the brake with one hand, unsuccessfully again. 

I moved automatically. I try usually to be a helpful person, but this time the driving force was more than just a want to be of help. It was a selfish desire to be a tiny part in their story. To share the connection between those four even if for just a few seconds. I asked them if I should just pick up and carry the empty stroller out. Two panicked and confused nods, the signal for departure was going off. It was a close call, but as the gates closed right in my face, all four of them and the stroller were on the other side of it, safe on the platform. Both the mothers were looking at each other, panting, relief in their eyes. The train pulled away and I slowly went back to where I was standing, still some way to go for my own stop. 

I was happy. I had refused to be an alien observer. It was an act of self acceptance, a belief that even beyond any sense of practicality, human connection is beautiful and real to me and I would not want it any other way.

 

An interesting article I read later

    

 

  

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, a review

          The first book review on the blog, but I plan to put many more in here. Mainly because writing helps me collect my thoughts, and form a more concise opinion about the book and the writer. Anyone coming across it and deciding to read/not read the book is the second reason, so I'll try to avoid as many spoilers as I can. Also, if you have read this book (or even if not) and would want to discuss anything, the comments are a great place to put your thoughts.

 

             Crime and Punishment was on my to-read list and I got hold of a copy just one week before everything went into lock down. The book is divided into parts, 1-6 and my progress through the parts was very erratic. Part one took me one month and the rest took three weeks. I would not call part one boring, it was the effectiveness of this section that made you not want to put the book down while reading the remaining parts. It transports you to Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg, puts you inside Rodion's (the main character) mind, connects you to his thoughts and ideas, and the magic of a good foundation is such, that you slowly go mad with him. I feel that the slow, building nature of part one is a necessity to let the rest of the story flow. The tone that the author sets is very grey and foggy, both inside Rodion's mind and the city itself, but there are certain sharp moments when everything clears up and those are the moments that affect the story. Then it all goes back to a foggy continuity. These sharp moments keep increasing and getting longer as the story moves forward, and there is an ache in your chest when it ends. 

 

            Rodion murders someone. But this murder is not the central conflict of the story. The thing that makes this story special is the psychological implications of the murder, both before and after it happens. On Rodion, people close to him, the policemen. Murder and Suicide are major themes of this book, and I think Dostoevsky's own personal experience played a big part in this. He was going to be hanged, was standing waiting for his death and had probably already accepted his death when a messenger arrived telling him that he had been pardoned (along with the few other prisoners in the same situation). He saw one of them go mad before his eyes, and then served his sentence in Siberia, having a lot of time to process everything. The magic of this book is the result of a coincidence, such a mind-shattering experience happening to such a talented storyteller. Also his time in Siberia surrounded by other criminals probably helped him formulate his ideas about crime, his consequent struggle with money and moneylenders formed his ideas about the structure of society and economy, and we strongly see them reflected in his characters and the direction the story goes in. 

 

    Another great thing about this book is the clever use of perspective. It's not always in first person, but you always know just enough to understand Rodion's state of mind. As a consequence to this, you understand this murderer and a bond forms between him and you. Even if you don't agree with his opinions and ideas, even if you hate the decisions he makes, you don't want him to suffer anymore. An overview or a character sketch of Rodion would paint him as a psychopath. Another character, Svidrigaïlov, is a depraved maniac with no sense of morality. And yet I hated Luzhin more than both of them, even though his only crime was being prideful and old fashioned. Rodion was prideful too, but I think the difference was that the narrative introduced me to Rodion and Svidrigaïlov's sufferings, their pain along with their crimes, and that added a humanity to those characters. Luzhin seemed like an almost alien, malevolent Individual deserving of all the contempt you have. Creating such a strong, morally challenging narrative which makes the reader double check their own emotions is a very difficult thing to pull off, but Dostoevsky does it perfectly.

 

    Another strong point was Sonya. Her religiousness, her sense of pride even in a society which constantly shamed her was in a stark contrast with Rodion's atheism and constant sense of fear. Their interactions are some of the best paragraphs in the book, the dynamic between them matched probably only by Rodion and Svidrigaïlov's in terms of being interesting and emotional. Sonya was the point around which the latter half of the book revolved around and in a sense she kept the story together, till the very last sentence of the epilogue. Although her character is a traditionally "womanly" character, like most female characters sadly are in classic novels, it's not because Dostoevsky cannot write strong women. Dounia, Rodion's sister is a very strong woman character much different from other classical heroines. I think this is intentional to showcase a different kind of strength, an emotional, mental strength. She is someone who would cry when someone raises their voice at her, but her will to live, her will to power through all the atrocities and problems in her life, the morals she believes in, her faith in god is what makes her character strong. And it is her who gathers up all the loose ends and ties them up, and inspires Rodion's inner turmoil to reach a peaceful end.

I'd strongly recommend this book to anyone who has ever contemplated about murder or about what might morally go on in the mind of someone who plans a murder. I also strongly recommend it to everyone else. It is a saga of mental anguish and moral dilemmas. I'll attach two of my favorite cover arts from all the editions (which I am planning to make a part of all book reviews) 

Why do we laugh?

I think most of us realise how important humour is in our daily lives. It influences the form of entertainment and media we consume, the people we hang out with, even the people we date. But throughout history humour has often been a very understudied area of philosophy. A lot of reasons were responsible for this, but I guess the main ones were the difficulty and the inherent non-serious nature of the subject. Neuroscience did not shy away from it and hence we have some understanding of the chemical reactions that makes us laugh, but then very little understanding of what may or may not trigger these reactions. Slowly, this tide is shifting and surfing on the waves of some of these theories of humour, in this post, I explore my outlook on it.

Theories of Humour

The Greeks, Plato and Aristotle felt that humour was a form of soft narcissism. It was our mind expressing happiness that the person falling in the manhole was not us, a feeling of superiority at the misfortune of others. While this might explain why roasts and slapstick humour is funny, it fails in all other forms. Relatable funny memes might make you feel superior to the ones whom it does not apply to, but that isn't the source of the comedy. Similarly, we perceive good, funny puns as witty, the sense of superiority is completely absent there.

It's hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they always take things, literally.

Then there is the incongruity theory, and Kant's interpretation is the most famous one. He claimed that the comic is "the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing." Building up tension and then with a clever ruse dissipating it draaws laughs (which some psychologists claim is just nervous laughter). Knock-knock jokes create suspense, stand up comics weave a story. The entire construct of "punchline" follows some kind of resolution. Most of the humour we have can be interpreted in some form in the framework of this theory. So it is a good one, but a simpler interpretation is also available. 

A woman is sitting at her recently deceased husband’s funeral. A man leans into her and asks, “Do you mind if I say a word?”.

“No, go right ahead”, the woman replies.

The man stands, clears his throat, says “Plethora”, and sits back down.

“Thanks”, the woman says, “that means a lot”.

 One of the newer theories and (in my opinion) a more complete one is the benign violation theory.

It's the brainchild of Dr Peter McGraw and the Humour research lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. In essence, this theory states that for something to be humourous, it has to be perceived as a violation, as well as being benign at the same time. A violation is anything out of the ordinary, a situation that is wrong or threatening or absurd (we can see some parallels here with the incongruity theory). Benign, in the literal sense of the word is something that is not harmful. Something acceptable or okay. When we experience a violation, but also are aware that it is benign, we find it humorous. Take the example of the joke above. The violation is the man just saying one word instead of paying his respects. The play with meaning, the woman's response is all part of the absurd, a violation. What makes it benign is that there is no ill intent, or disrespect, and the whole situation is distant from us mentally. The woman, her dead husband, and the man are characters in a story. The woman, thanking him and replying with "that means a lot" adds to the benign nature of the joke. The balance between benign and violation is often complex, but in anything humourous, it is there.

The appeal of dad jokes

When does a joke become a dad joke?

When it becomes apparent.

Now we might be able to adequately explain why dad jokes work. Dad jokes are identifiable by their over-simplistic humour, often also enticing a negative reaction (I heard your groans after the last one). When dad jokes get affectionately mocked or mockingly appreciated online, they’re often characterized as ultimately harmless but only barely clever. In general, we sometimes find bad jokes funny "because of how bad they are". This is because in modern society humour is plentiful and often complex. In such a setting, simplistic humour is out of place. Yes, simple humour is a violation. The violation aspect increases based on how bad a joke is, and it keeps the benign aspect. That's maybe why memes are getting so absurd and meaningless, the absurdity makes things that were not a violation, a violation. Deep frying probably owes all it's comedic value to this phenomenon. 

Wordplay and puns are the violations, but just words that don't hurt you. They are plays on meanings, something out of the ordinary. For kids who are exposed to a lot of dad jokes, the violation aspect decreases. Also, getting embarrassed in front of others might also take away the benign part of their father's dad jokes. Getting annoyed is also a reduction in benign-ness, which results in the feeling we call "cringe". Hence the dad jokes gain their infamy. But we all enjoy a bit of "Hi hungry, I'm dad" from time to time.

 

Dark Humour

The Buddha walks up to a hotdog stand and says, "make me one with everything".

 What this framework does better than others is that it gives a perspective on dark humour. Dark Humour is characterised by its offensiveness.  What makes it stick to some people and not to others is the very personal nature of what we think is benign. Every person, based on their experiences has a different understanding of what they think is harmless and what they do not. Words are not always harmless, here we have to keep in mind that the harm can be mental as well. So a joke about dead babies can be very harmful to someone who just miscarried.  There is no benign-ness, and the joke loses all humour, it turns into a mean comment. Religious people are a prime example of how this works, a joke about Jesus is not benign to Christians but the Hindus might love it, but then the same Christians might go about cracking jokes on Muslims, which is benign for them, it's harmless for them as it's not about their religion.

There are people, who can handle being roasted and people who can't. It's just because there's a difference between what hurts each individual. The tolerance capacity is different, hence the things they find funny is different too. Liking dark humour does not make you a bad person, and not liking it doesn't mean you are lame. What would make you a bad person, is not considering the tolerance level or the background of the person in front of you before you crack dark jokes. You should understand what things are bound to hurt them, and hence will not be funny to them. But then if misogyny, homophobia and racism are also benign to you, then maybe you should rethink your outlook on life and how unempathetic or unaware you might be to the troubles of other people (privilege might have to do something with that). There's nothing wrong or uncool about not finding hurtful things funny.  Everyone should try to be aware that the joke they are making is benign to their audience.

Trolls, trolling is also a form of modern humour which just involves saying mean things to others with the motive of upsetting them. These are people who do not have empathy, so they can't understand the hurt faced by their 'targets'. This makes their attacks benign to them, they dissociate with the pain felt by others. And of course, it's a violation, hence it's funny. Hence, we have cyber bullying and even regular school bullying. But it's funny only to them and mean in the eyes of everyone else.

It's okay to have a dark sense of humour, as long as you maintain your sense of empathy and understand how your words can make people feel. 

Why humour?

What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?

One of the questions I have always thought about is why we, as a species have humour? What is the evolutionary advantage of it?
Most theories say humour is sexually selected (seems pretty common in the modern age too). Humour might have developed as a sense of what is benign and what is not. Violations were plenty during human evolution, predators, weather, a plethora of problems. And our bodies had reactions to deal with these problems when we felt them coming. But it would have got too resource-intensive to react to every false alarm. Humour, a sense of what threat isn't actually a threat would then have helped our ancestors decide where to put their energy. This might have been the evolutionary advantage of humour. Also, it is social, so being near a person with a good sense of humour would help everyone in the group.

So how to be funnier? If you are a social person, a talkative one, then you would inevitably end up introducing small violations in what you say. To be funny, you have to make sure that these violations are mentally distant in terms of time, space or emotional attachment to the people around you. You have to make them benign. Otherwise, if you're less talkative, try to introduce small violations, find your humour in meta comments on the society and established ideas. I'm no comedy expert and it takes practice to make violations feel benign by the way you frame and present a joke, that is what a stand-up comic and comedy writer gets paid to do.

 

Confession:- This post was actually just an excuse for me to share my favourite jokes with you all.

 Peter McGraw's website with his research papers.
An excellent, but much longer essay on the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy.
The dadjokes subreddit for all your dadjoke needs.