Please Joke, it’s Covid

Dr. Ganesh Bala
Sigmund Freud who is well known for his concept of Libido has written a provocative book called “Jokes and their relation to the unconscious”. Jokes apart it’s a damn serious book! It’s very difficult to joke or laugh at one when a crisis such as Covid is in the air. But that’s exactly what his book conveys to us that jokes are “relief” techniques used by the unconscious to get out of the stress. But it’s not by reducing the seriousness of the crisis but being ‘concerned’ about it and not worried. When we experience a problem deeply with concern the relief function operates organically in the form of humour. Therefore humour is the highest form of comedy as it represents the unconscious to its core revealing its humaneness. While jokes for fun are lighter versions which can very soon turn vulgar. Therefore the slapstick comedy in movies, soaps, daily conversations have this tendency to be vulgar as they touch our superficial layers of relief and we feel the vulgarity. But Wit is a subset of humour where humour combines with wisdom. A category which is often mentioned about some movies as hilarious comedy are lighter versions with an immense capacity to generate light humour which stays with us as Wit for a long period of time. One important aspect of humour are satires and sarcasms. Even when comedy always involves ‘making fun of something or someone” as in satires where mostly a political or social theme is addressed to evoke serious criticism through humour. The classic example being Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” on Hitler. But in sarcasm there involves a high content of sadistic flavour and the purpose of the joke is directed in ridiculing a person or group. Therefore the element of unconscious involvement in sarcasm is minimal with an overriding conscious sadistic content which often turn vulgar very quickly. The best form of humour is the one where the purpose is to give “relief” to the audience with a witty touch to it. The basic quality of good humour is always its spontaneity. The comedian allows the unconscious and spontaneous urge for relief with a conscious grooming and natural flair for effective pauses based on awareness of his/her spontaneous reflexes. The more serious person the comedian is, the more effective his/her humour will be”. A unduly worried person during a crisis such as Covid is actually aggravating his/her mental and physical health which would be like carrying your luggage inside a running train. But a concerned person will be deeply serious on the crisis that to relieve himself cracks jokes on the crisis itself through which relieves the stress on others. Covid might have taken away laughter from the lives of many already but jokes being an unconscious “relief” function is not a time pass but a prerequisite for unavoidable mental health.