farmdoc's blog post number 394

You know how the personal ads go: ‘MJM, NS, GSOH’. Good sense of humour? Is there such thing as a bad one – a BSOH? I think you either have a sense of humour or you don’t. But even if you have one, it doesn’t always show. It depends on the circumstances of the moment. I guess that at birth we don’t have a sense of humour. Or at least one that’s apparent. But it’s remarkable how quickly one develops. Or becomes obvious. Darling Indigo, my first granddaughter, began to show hers well before her first birthday. She’d pull funny faces, or try to yank my spectacles from my face, and then laugh and laugh. And then she’d do it again. And laugh some more. Louder. I called her ‘a little tricker’. I still do. But she’s not so little now. She’s aged 8½. And her sense of humour’s more developed. More mature. Wryer. Have a look at the third comment from the top here and here; and the fifth from the top here. Arthur Schopenhauer, a philosopher not known for his sense of humour, once said ‘A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man’. Whether or not divineness is involved, I doubt it’s possible to be a well-adjusted functioning person without a sense of humour. I’m aware that it’s important to live in the present, but I can hardly wait to see how Indi’s sense of humour develops in future.