Seventh Sense: Humour

Without a sense of humour, someone is just another face. It doesn't matter how rich or famous or beautiful, a missing sense of humour makes one forgettable. Very much so. Okay, you say, but how do you know you have one and if not, where do you get it? First of all, saying that, means you must have one. Second of all, I don't have a clue how to or where you can find it. I guess part of having a sense of humour, is to be able to laugh at yourself. Most people can make awful mistakes and sooner or later, laugh at them. It might take a long time, but the ability to look at past mistakes and push them away, giggle and move on, is at the bottom of finding that seventh sense. Those who take themselves too seriously are in need of finding a way to look at life and see themselves as a mere players on the stage, and not the whole stage itself. I know a chap who is extremely serious, polite and soft spoken but someone who never laughs at anything, and certainly never at himself. We named him unkindly, The Zombie. I had a great aunt, then ancient and in a wheel chair, who had an unkind affliction that caused her limbs to fling about. In those days, your relatives came to visit and stayed at your house for a spate of time. Aunt Mabel had been wife, mother and a rather good looking woman in her day. She had means and made sure that all her many relatives had an opportunity to visit with her when she went on tour to survey the masses of us. We all dreaded her coming, especially we younger children who were terrified by her condition. In the day, parents didn't take time to explain things in detail and there was no Google. When she came to stay with us, at one point, when my mother was out, she got stuck in the bathtub and I had to assist her out of it. I was eleven years old and had no idea of how to accomplish the task, but did my best. Aunt Mabel was calling out loudly so the neighbours could hear. A soapy, slippery and constantly moving Aunt Mabel was more than a handful, small as she was, and bony. But when she and I were both doing our best, covered in soap suds and she in little else, struggled in the extrication, we both started to laugh. We laughed so hard and long that we barely got her onto the chair and wrapped in a large towel. From that moment on, old Aunt Mabel and I were friends. She had a sense of humour in a bad situation and I never forgot it,  or her. The other soul I knew, the rich man, The Zombie, who couldn't laugh at himself or anything else, needed to find what Aunt Mabel had. We are rather amusing creatures all told, and there is always something we do that is kind of funny however serious it seems at the time. Finding when and how and where to laugh is a gift. It's a seventh sense we need to foster in these serious times.