Margaret Serious

Joking is self-care — seriously!

In the handbook that’s yielded several recent posts, “The *More or Less* Definitive Guide to Self-Care” by Anna Borges, the tips and ideas are arranged alphabetically. Even J gets two entries: Joke and Journal. You have my permission to be startled at the news that I like both entries equally well.

As Borges writes at the beginning of the entry about Joke, “Sometimes all you can do is make light of the s— you’re going through, because when you treat things as less serious, they can feel less serious.” (Capitalization and italics hers,)

She recommends “darkly funny or self-deprecating jokes,” saying that an article in The Atlantic magazine described “dark memes” as possible therapy. As Elizabeth Anne Brown wrote in The Atlantic, “Typically, suicide memers aren’t mocking suicidal thoughts; they’re commiserating and bonding over being suicidal.”

I like the word “commiserating.” Sharing misery — co-misery — can nurture a bond when it’s all you have to share.

After all, it’s political convention time, folks! (See how it works? I can get serious about humor, too.)

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Filed under:
Expressions, Words Worth Defending