The Danger of Humor

A long time ago, there were two Indians - a warrior and a maiden - who were madly in love. But they could not be together because the camps in which they lived were separated by a large lake. Day after day the two would gaze at each other from different sides of that body of water. Finally, the warrior could no longer stand being apart from his great love, so he decided to swim across the lake to be with her. Halfway across the lake he drowned. Word spread quickly about the tragic fate of this young man who wanted nothing more than to be with the love of his life. In honor of that warrior, the lake became known as "Lake Stupid."


That was a joke I told many years ago at a dinner at which I was the key note speaker. You one can easily guess, no one in the audience laughed. Even though this happened several decades ago, to this day I still think about that awful moment in which I learned just how deafening silence can be. A hard lesson I learned from that experience is that if one wants to be funny in front of a room full of people, then they should proceed with great caution. Being funny in a public setting is not for the faint-hearted. Failure not only is embarrassing, but it quickly detracts from any credibility a speaker might have and does much to detract from any regard an audience might have for the person at the microphone.


I bring up this low moment in my so-called professional life as a word of warning to those non-comedians with dreams of regaling audiences with their wit as part of an attempt to pass along snippets of wisdom and experience. Humor is great and really can enhance any kind of public speech. But just as strongly, a failed attempt at humor can have nasty ramifications. Consequently, if one is going to tell a joke, then they should be as certain as they can that the joke is going to elicit laughs. At the same time, they need to be prepared with a good response in case the joke - for whatever reason - falls flat.