I tell weird, sometimes random jokes. Things that might not always make sense, or just seem so strange it still elicits a laugh, if awkward. I especially tell a lot of puns, even if some of them are so terrible and a bit of a stretch that they can barely be classed as a bad pun.
Sometimes, I’ve wondered why I do what I do. With weird and bad humor. Dad-type jokes they’d be called, or just off the wall random silliness.
I’m certain I’ve been told to stop being silly, just grow up, and other such things. And it does have an effect, and yet I still persist. There was… is, a deeper meaning for my doing such things I realize. The realization was just much more clear and distinct today than ever before.
I hate seeing pain. I hate seeing pain in those I care about, and I just about nearly have concerned for anyone I’ll meet, even if the initial meetings can be rough, hostile, or more. Suffering and agony, it hurts my heart whenever someone I see goes through it.
I don’t have the skills or stomach to be a doctor. To look at grievous wounds, or blood spilling and be able to handle it well. To make the extremely difficult and skilled decisions to help the body mend. Nor would my hands ever be stable enough to mend properly.
I’m no psychologist or therapist, despite seeing a number of them in my life. I don’t always know the best ways to treat something as complex as the human mind, soothe raging emotions and internal conflicts. To repair as best as possible broken hearts and relationships.
So what do I have? What are my skills that I can use to be of benefit? If one where to say, “nothing”, well that would be entirely wrong. Or to say the skills that I do have are useless, would also be wrong.
I feel God’s gifted me with the initial talents of both creativity and humor. Art, writing, singing, telling silly jokes, puns, off the wall weirdness that make people look twice, even thrice and wonder what they witness before laughing awkwardly. Society may sometimes be quick to write off these talents. But does not God have them also? Is He not a creator, rather, a THE Creator? That would make things like writing, music, poetry, drawing, sculpting, so much more a potent ability, a skillful thing.
Don’t get me wrong. He gave me these talents, but I wasn’t born knowing how to use them right away either. He’s trained me over a life time of attempting things, of practicing, of building skill. Just because you have a talent, doesn’t mean it won’t take skill to build up and attempt to perfect.
So back to the point, in me, God’s gifted me with art, with various types of writing, with the ability to sing decently, and the topic of this post, my weird, goof-ball sense of humor. I realize why I tend to be so weird, so silly, tell so many jokes. And it’s for a pretty basic, but important reason.
God uses this kind of thing in me, to help heal the spirit, the soul. I can’t take full on credit for what God’s given me to use to help not only others, but myself as well. I hurt a lot, but the humor has taken the edge off so to speak, has helped me cope so much with dire situations in the past. With my creativity and weird thinking in my processes, in my jokes, in my trying to be empathetic and sense what would make another person laugh, be joyous, uplifted for a short while.
With my humor, my puns… Even the bad jokes that can make a person groan, still can cause an laugh or two to come out, perhaps in shock at how bad the joke was… But I still count it as gain, as a laugh that helps relieve something.
With my art, my creativity in all it’s forms, I can express so many things. Maybe not perfectly still, but more than I would be able to without the creativity. Relate situations and experiences to others that we share, that I know we’ve all gone through in some way or another. To give hope, that it can still be improved upon, that it’s not “the end of the world.” We can fight, we can survive, we can cope, and we can even be happier one moment than we had in the past. Moments of daylight shining through a seemingly everlasting dark storm, grasping onto those beams of light gives us so much strength and comfort.
From my faith-based point of view, it’s what God blesses all with in a world sick with sin, and wrongness. Moments of His perfected love and compassion and sympathy.
Those light moments take power away from the darkness that grips our very souls, weakens their chains, even if just by a bit. That damage to those chains will build up, and there will be some day eventually they can be shattered forever.
And I realize this is the main point, the main thing of what I do. Of why I do the things I do. The jokes, the goofy sounds, the art, drawing of stuff both practical and “pointless”, writing of serious situations and emotional ideas.
God’s shared his healing gift with me in this way, that it may be spread to others I feel. And in my life, no matter how it goes, I will do the best I can to share that with as many possible. To relate, to feel, to try to help, to show love.
Take That, Depression! 