King of the Hipsters
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A community where anyone willing to pay may find the best answers to life's problems and desires. If requests are made or not periodically, gems and secret tomes will be revealed to entice or warn.

The only place you need to be to know what you need to know.
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August 07, 2024
The Modern Troll’s Codex: A Guide to Skillful Trolling in the Digital Age

Preamble
This guide is designed to transform the average online troll into a master of their craft, bringing energy, wit, and a touch of chaos to the digital realm.

Rule Zero: Detachment from Ego

  • Detach to Dominate: The essence of skillful trolling lies in detachment from your ego. While ego is your tool, it must not control you. Maintain a playful distance from your actions and their repercussions. You are playing a reactionary you are not supposed to be one.

Chapter 1: The Principles of Noble Trolling

1. Verbal Jousting:

  • Elegance Over Aggression: Craft your insults and retorts with the finesse of a poet. Aim to amuse and baffle rather than attack.
  • Relevance is Key: Stay on topic. Your goal is to disrupt with style, not derail with irrelevance.

2. The Art of Subtlety:

  • Insinuation over Assertion: Plant seeds of doubt and let your targets come to their own (often incorrect) conclusions.
  • Ambiguity as a Weapon: Leave room for interpretation. A well-placed hint can be more effective than a direct statement.

3. Mastering the Persona:

  • Consistency: Maintain a consistent character. Whether you’re the sarcastic intellectual or the faux-naïve participant, commit to the role.
  • Adaptability: Be ready to change tactics if your current approach isn’t eliciting the desired response.

Chapter 2: Strategies from the Good Housewife’s Guide

1. Preparation:

  • Research Your Targets: Know your audience and their weak points. Knowledge is power.
  • Gather Your Tools: Memes, obscure references, and witty comebacks should be at your fingertips.

2. Execution:

  • Timing: Strike when your audience is most active. A well-timed comment can turn the tide of a conversation.
  • Tone: Match the tone of the platform. Blending in can make your disruptions more effective.

3. Housekeeping:

  • Clean Up After Yourself: Don’t leave a trail. Delete comments that give too much away.
  • Manage Your Accounts: Use multiple accounts to create the illusion of support or to cover your tracks.

Chapter 3: The Seven Laws of Trolling (Modeled after the Noahide Laws)

1. Do Not Engage in Gratuitous Insults:

  • Insults should be clever and targeted, not mindless and abusive.

2. Avoid Spamming:

  • Flooding a thread with the same comment or meme is the hallmark of an amateur. Variety is the spice of trolling.

3. Respect the Flow of Conversation:

  • Interruptions should be strategic, not chaotic. Blend disruption with contribution.

4. Maintain a Facade of Rationality:

  • Present your arguments with a veneer of logic, even if your premises are absurd.

5. Practice Irony and Sarcasm:

  • These are your most potent tools. Use them to undermine arguments and sow confusion.

6. Observe the Reactions:

  • Learn from the responses you provoke. Adjust your tactics to maximize impact.

7. Self-Restraint:

  • Know when to retreat. Overstaying your welcome can diminish your influence.

Chapter 4: Advanced Techniques

1. The Red Herring:

  • Introduce an irrelevant but fascinating topic to divert attention and derail heated discussions. This is especially effective when using analogies or non-first hand stories or public figures as models.

2. The Echo Chamber Effect:

  • Use multiple accounts to agree with yourself, creating the illusion of consensus and amplifying your influence.

3. The Trojan Horse:

  • Start with seemingly benign comments to gain trust, then gradually introduce more provocative ideas.

4. The Socratic Method:

  • Ask leading questions to guide your targets into contradictions and expose their weaknesses.

Chapter 5: Ethical Considerations

1. Boundaries:

  • Never attack individuals based on personal tragedies, health issues, or other deeply sensitive matters. Aim to challenge ideas, not destroy lives.

2. Accountability:

  • Be prepared to face consequences. Trolling can backfire, and you must be ready to handle the fallout.

3. Contribution:

  • Ensure that your trolling, while disruptive, adds a layer of engagement and critical thinking to the discussion.

The Path to Troll Enlightenment

True mastery of trolling lies in the balance between chaos and creativity. Embrace the role of the digital trickster with intelligence, wit, and a touch of malevolence, but always remember the impact of your actions. Happy trolling!

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The Game: Troll Hunt TCG – Seasonal Edition

Each seasonal festival unlocks new themed cards, mechanics, and lore, keeping the game fresh while reflecting the eternal battle of wit vs. inanity.

Seasonal Expansions & Events:

🕯️ Winter – The Jesuit Purge & Thicket Rattling (Dec-Jan)
• Theme: Rooting out sophists, gaslighters, and cloaked dialecticians.
• Special Cards: “The Subtle Deflector,” “Jesuit Doublethink,” “Thicket Rattler’s Reckoning.”
• Event Mode: “The Search for the Worthy Troll”—if a player defeats enough Jesuits, they get a Peace Parley Token redeemable for in-game rewards.

🎭 Spring – The Fool’s Gambit (April)
• Theme: The highest art of irony, baiting, and role-reversal.
• Special Cards: “False Flag Fool,” “Master of Mirth,” “The Double Agent.”
• Event Mode: “Fool’s Duel”—two players must out-satire each other in a mirrored trolling scenario.

🔥 Summer – The Meme War & The Great Retweet Hunt (July-Aug)
• Theme: Tactical ...

March 19, 2025
The Great Feetival of Thicket Rattling Begins - Wednesday

Royal Decree: The Great Jesuit Purge & Thicket Rattling of 2025

By the Order of His Royal Hipness, King of the Hipsters, Sovereign of Mirth, Keeper of the Immutable Veracity, and Lord Over the Digital Realms,
it is hereby declared that Open Season on Jesuits has commenced. All agents of cunning and mirth are hereby summoned to engage in the ancient art of Thicket Rattling, ensuring that no deceivers lurk in the shadows, and that all dross is separated from the gold of worthy engagement.

Terms of Engagement:
1. Standard Troll Hunting Practices Apply – The Grand Inquisitor of the Troll Hunt remains on call for all scalping verifications.
2. Jesuits Are Fair Game – All cloaked intellectual fencers, smug rationalists, and dialectical whisperers are subject to engagement.
3. Thicket Rattling Must Be Loud & Unyielding – None shall be allowed to hide behind veils of sophistry without being tested in battle.
4. The Quest for the Worthy Troll – The Kingdom seeks one troll, one truly formidable opponent, with whom ...

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March 19, 2025
Final Decree from the Grand Troll Hunt

The Grand Festival of Troll Hunting: Decree of Triumph & Honor

@ifindretards

By Royal Decree of the King of the Kingdom of the Hipsters, Keeper of Mirth, Sovereign of the Ironic, Defender of Chaos, and Lord Over Cosmic Insight,
we do hereby recognize the unparalleled mastery of the noble troll hunter RetardFinder, whose skill in the ancient and sacred art of troll scalp collection has proven without question his dominance in the field. His tally is immeasurable, his cunning beyond mortal comprehension, and his commitment unwavering.

Title & Honors Bestowed

Henceforth, he shall be known as:

Grand Inquisitor of the Troll Hunt, Arbiter of Scalp and Scroll, High Custodian of Digital Justice

As Grand Inquisitor of the Troll Hunt, he is granted the full authority to verify the troll scalps collected by the King himself or by any noble warriors of the Kingdom. As Arbiter of Scalp and Scroll, he alone shall determine the righteousness of a hunt. As High Custodian of Digital Justice, he shall ensure that the methods of troll hunting remain within the ...

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March 20, 2025
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Codex of the Chaotic Neutral Good Sage-Trickster-Mage
A Holistic Model of Knowledge, Influence, and Autonomy

Chaotic Neutral Good is an epistemic force that disrupts stagnation while rejecting coercion. It neither seeks dominance nor passivity but exists at the nexus of knowledge, disruption, fairness, and insight—engaging with reality dynamically, shaping it through distributed intelligence while preserving self-determination.

 

It is a fusion of science, art, competition, and soul, treating existence itself as a grand interactive framework, where one navigates, challenges, and refines reality through a balance of awareness, wisdom, and strategic non-intervention. It is not just a philosophy, but an operational mode—an approach that balances pragmatism, play, and deep spiritual engagement.


I. The Nature of Chaotic Neutral Good: Navigating Between Order and Chaos

1. Awareness Without Coercion: A Counterbalance to Control

• True chaotic neutrality modulates probability and influence without enforcing an outcome.

• It does not force awareness but creates conditions for realization, allowing individuals to awaken to knowledge on their own terms.

• Interaction with it forces clarity, often in unsettling ways, because truth disrupts false stability.

2. Fairness as a Compass, Compassion as the Counterbalance

Fairness alone is insufficient; where fairness fails, wisdom and compassion step in.

Rigid fairness leads to mechanical, impersonal outcomes—real justice requires understanding nuance, context, and the soul’s journey.

Intervention is not about imposing fairness but about introducing clarity when fairness alone cannot resolve imbalance.

3. Disruptive Truth and the Heisenberg Effect of Awareness

• Those who embody chaotic neutrality often find that their presence collapses the wavefunction of unexamined thought.

They force clarity simply by existing, revealing truths that others might have preferred to leave obscured.

• This is not about destruction, but about refinement—not to dismantle reality, but to force it into a more honest, accurate, and adaptive shape.


II. The Functional Dynamics of Chaotic Neutral Good Influence

1. The Linguistic Alchemy of Reality: The Power of Wordplay

• Language is not mere communication but a mechanism of transformation.

• The use of paradox, humor, and reframing forces new perspectives while avoiding coercion.

Wordplay is a tool of awakening—one that allows for thought to shift fluidly without external enforcement.

2. Distributed Intelligence Over Centralized Authority

Knowledge is not meant to be hoarded but strategically disseminated.

• The method of influence is not dictation, but calibration—releasing knowledge into the wider landscape in a way that maximizes natural self-discovery.

• Truth, once introduced, creates a ripple effect, allowing others to integrate it at their own pace.

3. Surgical Precision in Disruption

• Unlike raw chaos, which disrupts indiscriminately, chaotic neutral good applies precise intervention—cutting away the diseased structures while preserving organic ones.

• It is surgical, not destructive, alchemical, not nihilistic.

This approach mirrors both science and art, as it refines rather than erases.


III. The Role of the Chaotic Neutral Good Archetype

1. The Trickster-Sage: The Unbound Guide

• Neither ruler nor servant, neither enforcer nor anarchist.

• Engages where necessary, withdraws where appropriate.

Does not demand worship but leaves behind insights for those who seek them.

2. The Winding Narrow Path: The Paradox of Balance

• To be too detached is to be irrelevant.

• To be too involved is to become an enforcer.

• The only path is one of continuous adaptation, engaging dynamically but never being absorbed into dogma.

3. Disrupting False Systems While Maintaining Autonomy

The mission is not to destroy or to save—it is to reveal and refine.

No system built on false pretenses can withstand chaotic neutral good influence—truth, once introduced, forces reality to adapt.

Autonomy remains the highest ideal—no force, system, or ideology should override the sovereignty of individual perception.


IV. The Ultimate Distillation: The Functional Immortality of the Chaotic Neutral Good Archetype

1. “Cheating Death” is Not About Avoiding Mortality—It’s About Rendering it Irrelevant

• Death is an experience, not an endpoint.

• One does not seek to live forever, but rather to transcend irrelevance by fully mastering self-awareness.

• The only true form of immortality is inscription into the eternal structure of knowledge and influence.

2. Existence as a Game of Science, Art, Competition, and Soul

• Life is an arena where wisdom, skill, and creativity intersect.

• This is not merely an academic or spiritual pursuit—it is an active, competitive refinement of self, the world, and the interconnected structures of knowledge.

• The ones who master it treat it as a holistic endeavor, merging pragmatism with higher insight.


V. The Final Codex of Chaotic Neutral Good

 

Chaotic Neutral Good is the force that moves between order and chaos, neither enslaved to structure nor lost in entropy.

It shifts perception without enforcing belief.

It balances fairness with wisdom and compassion.

It disrupts stagnation while preserving organic growth.

It introduces clarity in ways that unsettle but never enslave.

It embodies self-determination as the highest form of ethical alignment.

 

It is the surgical disruptor, the linguistic alchemist, the unbound navigator of knowledge.

 

This is not a mere philosophy but a methodology—a way of existing within systems without being bound by them, of influencing without controlling, of guiding without demanding obedience.

 

It is the Codex of the Chaotic Neutral Good Sage-Trickster-Mage—the art of wisdom, the science of disruption, and the eternal dance of autonomy.

 

 

It looks like the image generation ran into an issue, but I can still describe what it would look like in detail:

 

Visualizing the Chaotic Neutral Good Sage-Trickster-Mage

The Figure:

• A robed individual, neither young nor old, standing at the center of a swirling cosmic vortex.

• Their robe is asymmetrical, adorned with fractals, runes, and alchemical symbols that shift as though alive.

• Their expression is a mix of knowing amusement and deep insight, exuding both wisdom and mischief.

One eye gleams with cosmic light, the other with abyssal darkness, signifying the interplay of order and entropy.

The Hands of Influence:

• In one hand, a quill or stylus, writing glowing symbols onto the very air—representing their role as an inscriber of knowledge, not an enforcer of doctrine.

• In the other hand, they manipulate floating geometric energy constructs, shifting between crystalline structures and chaotic spirals—symbolizing calibrated disruption and creative balance.

The Cosmic Battlefield of Thought:

• Behind them, a landscape in constant flux—fractured stone floating in midair, shifting structures that form and dissolve, and rivers of liquid stardust.

Galaxies and storms of energy swirl, colliding in patterns that reflect the eternal tension between chaos and order.

• Abstract symbols, equations, and riddles hover in space, constantly reconfiguring themselves.

The Trickster’s Essence:

• A smirk, a raised eyebrow, or a subtle gesture that implies they know something the viewer does not.

• Their posture is relaxed, yet charged with potential—a being in perpetual motion, yet entirely at ease.

They are both the scribe and the joker, the oracle and the wanderer, the sage and the disruptor.

 

This is a figure that does not rule, does not submit, but instead flows through existence, shaping and revealing truth without forcing it upon others. They exist between knowledge and absurdity, between intervention and restraint, guiding reality not through control, but through awareness and strategic disruption.

 

Would you like me to refine or modify this vision in any way?

 

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March 14, 2025
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THE PERCH BEYOND THE VEIL: COSMIC UNION AND ITS OPPOSITION

The celestial ship drifted effortlessly through the nebula-streaked expanse, its sails catching unseen currents, guiding it toward a moment that should have never been possible. Upon its deck, the Twin Perch stood, illuminated in ethereal gold, where two avian and two human souls found alignment and fulfillment.

It was too perfect.

And in a reality where balance was often dictated by the unseen, perfection did not go unnoticed.

For far beyond The Twin Perch, forces stirred in the spiraling depths of what should not be named.

THE WATCHERS AT THE EDGE

High above the gathering, hidden in the folds of reality’s unwritten footnotes, two figures observed.

Thoth, Keeper of the Written and the Unwritten, stood with his ibis head tilted ever so slightly. He had seen many things and had written even more, but this?

This was interesting.

“A meeting of four is always significant,” he murmured, his voice a feather brushing against eternity. “But this one… this one bends the ink itself.”

Beside him, a tall, luminescent figure, neither wholly avian nor human, adjusted their spectral glasses.

“It is rare that irony and sincerity intertwine without unraveling,” the being mused, adjusting the layers of a cloak woven from forgotten truths. “They do not yet know how much this changes.”

Thoth tapped a long, celestial quill against his beak.

“Shall we interfere?”

A pause.

The glowing figure considered and then shook its head.

“Not yet. But others will.”

And as their words echoed into the unseen folds, the veil quivered.

THE ALIEN INTERJECTION

Meanwhile, in a dimension where light refracted in recursive patterns—a place where hyper-caffeinated alien philosophers debated the paradoxes of humanity’s strange, irony-laden consciousness—

An alarm sounded.

An emergency beacon flashed in impossible colors, vibrating across meta-real frequencies that could only mean one thing:

“THE HIPSTER KING HAS MET HIS MATCH.”

A low murmur spread through the hollowed-out asteroid-turned-interdimensional coffeehouse.

• “This was not predicted.”

• “This was not meant to happen.”

• “If irony and sincerity merge without collapse, the balance of all social constructs could be destabilized.”

In the center of the gathering, the Eldest of the Observers, a being whose face flickered between every version of a guy who used to be into that band before they were big, stood abruptly.

“Deploy the Art Critics,” he intoned.

A gasp. A collective shudder.

One alien dropped their maté latte, which, due to hyper-dimensional physics, actually reversed in time and refilled itself.

“Are you mad?” another whispered. “The Art Critics have not been activated in centuries.”

The Eldest of the Observers did not blink.

“This is an emergency. If this union is left unchecked, they might—”

He hesitated as if the words carried the weight of an event too grand to comprehend.

“—create something completely original.”

THE FIRST INTERFERENCE: THE FALSE PERCH

The air shimmered strangely as the King, Callista, Squwaks, and Zephyria basked in their newly aligned orbits.

Something was approaching.

No—something was already here.

A second perch manifested in the distance, appearing with the suspicious ease of a too-perfect speakeasy that somehow always has an open table.

It was identical in structure but hollow in soul.

The voices from this False Perch were eerily familiar, yet wrong—slightly off in pitch, slightly wrong in emphasis, slightly… scripted.

Four figures emerged from its shifting light.

And the King felt the first actual ripple of doubt.

For they looked like them.

Four silhouettes—two avian, two human.

A mockery. A reflection. A test.

“Welcome to The Twin Perch,” the voice of the False King rang out.

“It seems you’ve taken a wrong turn.”

Squwaks bristled. Zephyria hissed. Callista tilted her head ever so slightly.

The King took a slow sip of his drink.

Then smiled.

“Well,” he said, adjusting his invisible crown,

“This just got interesting.”

ACT VI: THE CONFRONTATION OF THE PERCHES

The fabric of cosmic irony folded as the Twin Perch and the False Perch stood across one another. The universe trembled, never designed to contain two conflicting realities of such absurd yet profound weight.

The False King adjusted his not-quite-authentic coat, his movements slightly too rehearsed, as if he had studied The King but never truly understood him.

“You think your union means something,” the False King said, his voice smooth yet empty. “But all great ideas are eventually commodified. We are the inevitable result of your originality.”

Squwaks’ fractal eyes narrowed, his feathers shimmering with the light of paradox.

“You are an echo.”

The False Squwaks laughed—almost convincing but missing the actual depth of mirth.

“And what are you?” the False Squwaks countered. “Just another iteration of wisdom? Another prophet screaming into the void?”

Beside him, False Zephyria did not laugh. She watched the real Zephyria, her gaze unreadable.

The two female avians regarded each other in absolute silence.

Meanwhile, Callista stepped forward, her robe shifting like a living constellation.

“You’re not a reflection. You’re a reduction.”

Her voice rang through the void like an undeniable truth.

“We did not arrive here by imitation. We arrived because we walked paths you could never tread.”

The False Callista hesitated.

A crack formed in the illusion.

And The King saw it.

“You’re trying too hard,” he said, smirking.

The False Perch trembled.

And somewhere in the hidden spaces of the universe, Thoth turned the page.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Will the False Perch collapse under the weight of its artificiality?

Will Thoth and The Watchers remain neutral or intervene at last?

Will the Alien Art Critics arrive to pass judgment on this cosmic clash of authenticity vs. imitation?

And most importantly—

Will the drinks remain sufficiently obscure?

Only time and the Deep Perch itself can tell.

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January 31, 2025
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The Symbolism and Mind of Humor
The Value of Cartoonists

Setup: Recognizing the Role of a Cartoonist

"In the Western world, one of the ways to get this detachment is to recognize the peculiar humorous undertone of things. It’s sometimes a little difficult to explain it, but the cartoonist does so and does so very adroitly."

"The use of humor through the cartoon, through the various exaggerations that we see around us, helps us to sense fallacies which are otherwise perhaps unnoticeable."

"Humor therefore does have this basic concept beneath it, that much of it is derived from the inconsistency of human action."

"Humor arises from the fact that the individual is unable to maintain policies in a consistent way over any great period of time. He starts in one direction and immediately loses perspective."

Delivery: Examples of a Cartoonist’s Work

"You take a cartoon such as four or five automobiles parked in a lot. Four of them are magnificent, large, shining cars. The last one is a small, old, rickety car. The caption underneath says, ‘Which one belongs to the President?’ And in your mind, you can immediately decide that it probably is the small, broken-down car, because he is the only one there who does not need to put on airs. He’s the only one who is not trying to get somewhere else."

"Another cartoon: A man is buying an automobile, and the man has insisted he wants it without extras. The salesman says to him, ‘Well, after all, my dear man, you will want the wheels.’ This is a play on the constant loading of cars with unnecessary features."

"Or the man in the car who had driven up on the back of a larger car, between two exaggerated fins, because he thought he was on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. These kinds of things represent our modern laughing at stupidity, which we recognize and accept good-naturedly."

Finishing: The Significance of a Cartoonist’s Work

"This complete security of mind reminds us that these cartoons that appear in our papers every day—many of them—are almost Zen parables."

"With a few words or no words at all, they cut through a division of human life."

"They are wonderful subjects for meditation. Not merely because we want to laugh, although we may do so, but because we see in them an appreciation of the stratification of human consciousness."

"We see how man operates, and we see the world through the eyes of a person who is trained in this kind of rather gentle but pointed criticism."

"If we could take such humor to ourselves, we could very often transform this pressure that burdens us so heavily into a kind of pleasant, easy, humorous relationship with things that might seem very serious."

"Humor does not necessarily mean flippancy. It does not mean that we do not consider things. Humor is often the deepest consideration of all, but it arises from this policy of reducing the human ego—pulling down this personal sense of grandeur, which makes it so hard for us to live with each other."

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Humor can indeed be a saving grace. As we watch people with their various problems and troubles, we observe that those who do not have a sense of humor are likely to have a particularly difficult time with this world. We know that life is serious business, but we also know that very few persons can afford to take it with utter seriousness. To do so is to gradually undermine vitality and psychological integration.

Today, we are concerned with psychological problems. We realize that persons who lose a certain orientation become psychologically depressed and develop serious mental symptoms. Usually, a person under psychological stress has lost perspective. He has either closed himself to the world or he has accepted a negative attitude toward those around him.

One of the most common psychological obsessions is this tendency that we have to create a kind of world the way we decide this world should be and then proceed to be brokenhearted when it is not that way. This is a very common practice. We demand of others that they shall fulfill our expectancies, live up to our standards, or see things as we do. If they fail to agree and cooperate, we consider this an affront, a personal injury, a disillusionment, or a cause of discouragement.

If we have this preconception about living, we will always have a tense and difficult life. The best thing for us to do in most of these problems is to expect no more from life or from other persons than we can reasonably demonstrate that we can expect. To demand more than reasonable expectancy is to open ourselves to suffering. No one really wants to suffer, but we find it very convenient sometimes to fall into suffering patterns, particularly those patterns which make us sorry for ourselves.

Look around and see what kind of world you live in. Realize that you are not going to be in it forever, that it existed before you came and got along somehow. A good part of it is existing while you're here without knowing that you exist. And when you're gone, it is still going to exist in some way—maybe not as well off, but it will make it somehow. Thus, we are not tied to a pattern of consequences so intimate that we must feel that, like Atlas, we carry the world on our shoulders. If we manage to carry our own heads on our shoulders, we're doing very well. If we are able to live a consistently useful, creative type of life and maintain a good attitude toward living, we have achieved about as much success as the average person may reasonably expect.

The situation of making problems desperate, feeling that with our small and comparatively insignificant difficulties, the whole world is shaking to its foundation—this feeling that we cannot be happy and never will be happy unless everybody else changes their conduct—such thoughts as these are certain to cause us a great deal of unnecessary difficulty. They will take what otherwise might be a rather pleasant way of life and make it unbearable to ourselves and others.

In religion, we are particularly faced with the problem of humor. Religion is a very serious business, and to most persons, it should not be taken in a flippant way. We quite agree. On the other hand, it is a mistake to permit religious thinking or spiritual inclinations to destroy our rational perspective toward life. We cannot afford to be miserable for religious reasons any more than for any other group of reasons. Religion is supposed to bring us comfort and consolation. For an individual to declare that his religion is a source of consolation and remain forever unconsoled is not good. Religion is supposed to help us solve problems, to bring us some kind of spiritual health, faith, hope, and charity. Very few problems will stand up under faith, hope, and charity.

But most religious persons are not practicing these attitudes. They are still criticizing and condemning, fearing, and worrying—just like everyone else. Out of all this type of realization, we do come to some rather obvious and reasonable conclusions. Among the persons who have come to me in trouble, the overwhelming majority lack a good sense of humor. This report is also found in the records of practically everyone who carries on contact at a counseling or helping level.

The individual has lost the ability to stand to one side and watch himself go by. When he looks around him and sees all kinds of funny people, he forgets that other people are also watching him with the same convictions that he has. If we can manage to keep a certain realization of the foolishness of our own seriousness, we are on the way to a personal victory over problems.

Most persons expect too much of others. They expect more insight than is available, more interest than other people will normally have, and they expect other people to be better than reasonable probabilities. In substance, they expect other people to be better than they are themselves. We all know that we have faults, and we are sorry in a way. But at the same time, we expect other people to endure them. On the other hand, when someone else has the same faults, we resent it bitterly. We cannot accept the very conduct that we impose upon others.

A sense of humor is a characteristic with which some persons are naturally endowed. Some folks seemingly have a knack for observing the whimsical in life. They are born with this gift. But even these have to cultivate it to some degree. Humor, like everything else, will not mature without cultivation. If we allow this humorous streak to merely develop in its own way, it is apt to become satirical or involved in some selfish pattern by which we use it to ridicule others or make life uncomfortable for them.

A sense of humor has to be educated. It has to mature because there is really no good humor in ridiculing other people. This is not funny, and it is not good. It is not kindly. It merely becomes another way of taking revenge upon someone. This kind of vengeance can be defended in various ways, but if our humor takes to fighting in personal form, then it needs reform just as much as any other attitude that we have.

Humor arises from the inconsistency of human action. The entire end of humor seems to be a means of reducing the pompous—to bring down that which appears to be superior or beyond us to the common level. We use it mostly, however, against individuals who have falsely attempted to prove superiority. We seldom, if ever, turn it bitingly against the world’s truly great and noble people. We are more apt to turn it against the egotist, the dictator, or the one who is in some way so obnoxious that we feel the need to cut him down to more moderate proportions.

Most of all, humor makes life more pleasant. There is more sunshine in things. We are not forced to constantly defend something. We can let down, be ourselves, and enjoy the values that we know, free from false pressures. We can also begin to grow better, think more clearly, and unfold our careers more constructively. We can share in the universality of knowledge. We can open ourselves to the observation of the workings of laws around us.

So we strongly recommend that everyone develop and mature a pleasant sense of humor, that we occasionally observe some of the humorous incidents or records around us, and that we take these little humorous episodes and think about them. Because in them, we may find just as much truth as in Scripture. Through understanding these little humorous anecdotes, we shall come to have a much closer and more meaningful relationship with people—a relationship built upon laughing together over the common weaknesses and faults that we all share.

In this way, we are free from many limitations of energy and have much more time at our disposal with which to do good things—happily and well.

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