“Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it.”
- Cullen Hightower
Laughter is medicinal, but unfortunately some people don’t take kindly to being laughed at. Take it from a guy who knows.
It’s a shame you can’t go around laughing at people though. It would be healthy if you didn’t have to worry about people knocking your lights out.
Regardless, make sure that the next time you make a mistake you laugh at yourself.
“You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.”
- Al Capone
Once again, I’m picking my quote based on a movie we watched tonight.
Every now and then I come across a movie or story that really gets me excited about things that I liked before but didn’t really obsess about.
I don’t remember when I first got excited about the idea of being a cowboy, but when I was younger I was really into the whole thing. I loved horses (still do), I loved the idea of having a trusty gun, I loved the cowboy boots, the hat, the rough ‘n tough nature, and the simple, straightforward approach to life.
Tonight we watched True Grit (the new one with Matt Damon and Jeff Bridges). Once again, all of my childhood love for the time period came back to me. I would say the memories came flooding back to me, but really it was more of a trickle. The movie was good, but it wasn’t that good.
The best things about it, for me, were the girl who played Mattie Ross, and Jeff Bridges. Mattie was an excellently played character, and her performance was very enjoyable. But Jeff Bridges really brought his character to life, and embodied an iconic philosophy that is often associated with the wild west (among other things).
Both the girl and Jeff were able to portray the essence of the time, where it wasn’t always enough to be likable and wearing a smile. You had to have the guts (or grit, in this case) to put bullets behind your words. They both smiled, they were both good with people (to a degree), and when the time came, they both pulled the trigger.
Smiles are handy, but they aren’t always enough.
I don’t think the same philosophy of carrying a gun is as effective in today’s society, especially in light of what happens when people pull the trigger. Firing even a single bullet these days is too risky. It’s a thorny legal forest to navigate.
So what would today’s equivalent be?
I’m not claiming to be an expert, but it seems to me that once again California, by way of the World Wide Web and the era of technology, is experiencing a new gold rush and has become a sort of wild west. There just aren’t many clear laws surrounding the use, distribution, governance, and ownership of technological products and services. Existing laws are inadequate, outdated, nearly impossible to enforce, and difficult to apply to the new way of things.
In this new wild west, if someone wrongs you gun shots are not fired. Instead, lawsuits are flung, lawyers are called, patents are disputed (or ignored), and ideas are stolen.
That’s kind of a vague way of looking at it, but it’s the best I can do for now. I’m not replacing “gun” with “lawsuit,” but instead suggesting that aggressive tactics and fearless risk taking are the new “gun” with which a smile must be paired in order to go far.
Regardless, it’s a fun quote and one that brings to mind the wonderful world of the wild west. I should note that I do not, in any way, advocate the philosophy that Al Capone is preaching with this quote. I think that a smile paired with good, hard, honest work will get you even further, get you fewer enemies, and land you in less trouble.
I’m going to go back to enjoying my beautiful leather cowboy hat (recently acquired after a decade and a half of searching for the perfect one) and dream of owning a horse.
“I’ve been trying for some time to develop a lifestyle that doesn’t require my presence.”
- Garry Trudeau
We began a lifestyle change not too long ago in our home. We decided to simplify and reduce the number of possessions we have (thus reducing the clutter). It’s been wonderful, but every once in a while I recall this funny little quote, and I think, “wouldn’t that be nice…”
I mean, I like being there as much as most. I wouldn’t want to be absent all of the time. But wouldn’t it be nice if we weren’t always required to be present? Ah. To be able to walk away from whatever it is, whenever you feel like it. That would be great. Especially during weeks like these.
“I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.”
- Neil Armstrong
This quote, for some reason, always comes to mind while I’m running.
There is a lot deeper meaning that one can read into this, but at face value it is both humorous and meaningful.
I think it is even a little ironic that this was said by a US Astronaut, one who has to be so very fit. They did a lot of exercise in preparation for their missions. I’m sure this quote merely points out that he wasn’t willing to do any exercise above and beyond the minimum requirements.
From what I understand, the idea that humans have a limited number of heartbeats isn’t entirely false. I don’t like providing links in these “thoughts” posts, but I do recall reading about the medical basis for a belief like this. Animals that have fast heartbeats tend to have shorter lifespans, and animals with slower heartbeats tend to live longer. The same logic, I guess, applies to humans, and since heart-rate at least is correlated with lifespan, reason suggests that universally there are a fixed number (roughly) of heartbeats that can be accomplished within a given lifespan.
I don’t know. I just got done running and frankly exercise doesn’t benefit my ability to work things out logically. I think better on days when I don’t run.
How’s that for science?
“I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.”
- Charles De Gaulle
Politics. Few things in life are as pervasive and annoying as politics. They are everywhere, and they begin showing up in our earliest years.
In fact, I noticed the ridiculousness of politics early in life, and was quickly appalled to discover that there were actual jobs based around the study and performance of politics.
What a terrible idea. To have people whose sole job is to tend to political things. Politicians. What other job anywhere is a worse idea than that of politician?
Seriously. I’m open to suggestions.
Politics is the art of making unimportant things important, pretending to be a certain way to get people to like you, making insignificant things seem big in order to distract people away from truly important things, and ultimately putting on a circus while getting paid a fortune for doing less work than the dung scooper in the elephant cages.
There are no current politicians whom I respect. They’ve all made complete fools of themselves, or at least the media (a political conglomerate) has done a fine job of making them all out to be morons. When I watch or read the news I am sometimes ashamed to be a human being upon reading about the new batch of bologna our politicians have cooked up.
Alright. These aren’t supposed to be rants as much as thoughts on quotes. So there’s the quote, and here’s my thought – what this world needs is fewer politicians and more good people.
“One has to look out for engineers, they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb.”
- Marcel Pagnol
I have often considered a degree in some kind of engineering. Lately it’s been aerospace engineering (and I think I’m sticking with that one). Either way, I always love the way engineers are viewed by society. There is a duality to their role and image in society that I both relate to and love.
The Dilbert comics are a wonderful example of how engineers are viewed. They can be both heroic and villainous. We revere them for their genius, and we mock their methods. We admire their education, and mock their absent-mindedness.
I may not have a degree, but in this sense I am very much an engineer.
On a less personal note, this quote underscores the unpredictability of today’s technological progress. It is awesome to think of how far we have come in recent years, and the excitement of new inventions and discoveries is only abated by the possibility that some future creation of man could spell our doom.
Happy inventing, engineers!
“No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.”
- Michel de Montaigne
Chew on this for a moment: Michel, Lord Michel de Montaigne, lived almost 500 years ago.
Five hundred years ago.
Well, closer to 450 years ago.
I love this quote. It’s absolutely true, and yet the truth behind it is liberating, fun, and has the potential to make life all that much more fun.
Of course, this doesn’t mean losing control of your tongue and giving in to whimsical utterances. It specifically says, “deliberately.” A well-planed, carefully uttered silly thing can be both mischievous and fun.
Let us all go about our business seeking opportunities to say something tactful, silly, and deliberate.
I just can’t help but wonder what this guy Michel would have done with the Internet had he lived in our time.
“Never fight an inanimate object.”
- J. O’Rourke
This quote has unexpected meaning for me today.
Sure, at first glance it’s just funny. I picture a guy fighting a couch, or a rock, or maybe a tree. His knuckles are bloody, the inanimate object isn’t sustaining any noticeable damage, and the guy just looks silly. His rage, his folly, and the futility of his actions are all standing out strong.
Today my mind was flooded with chaos when two work related training opportunities hit at the same time. They don’t conflict with each other, but they are both mandatory, and they will turn my life upside down. Lots of complications, both with work and with my family life, began tearing through my brain. It was like a couple of furious tornadoes ripping through the middle of New York City. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t make sense of anything.
I guess they call this panic.
The thing is, I don’t generally experience panic in this way. Events don’t set my panic mode off. Situations do, but not by surprise. For example, I know I will panic if someone draws a syringe from their pocket and attempts to jab me with it. I experience irrational fear in the presence of needles. That definitely causes panic. To a lesser degree, I know I will panic in a crowded place if I become stressed. Stress doesn’t make me panic, but stress on top of over-stimulation (such as being around too many people) will generally make me panic a little.
It’s a rare thing to see me panic, even just in my head, in the face of unexpected situations. I am familiar with my limits, and with what makes me panic. But today, in a situation that would normally only cause a fit of frustration, I panicked.
Thankfully, I was able to calm myself down and work my way through the problems. I made a phone call, wrote an email, spoke with my boss, and soon had pretty much set everything up to handle the two training events.
Thinking back on it, my panic mode could have led to me attempting to fight against what had happened. Perhaps part of what had jammed up my logic was that I knew there were forces involved that I couldn’t influence, and yet I couldn’t stop my mind from frantically exploring every possible avenue in search of a solution. Those are forbidden paths, I told myself. You can’t seek solutions there! And yet, the raging storm had already begun, and I just had to wait for the power to die down.
It may have been a unique experience for me, but I have seen it happen before in others. People tend to have these sorts of irrational confrontations with problems from time to time. I think it’s natural.
Being as stressed as I was this morning (the two training events obviously weren’t the only things on my plate at the time), I don’t know what I could have done to prevent that little panic attack, but I do know what prevents the more common, but less intense panic attacks I see in others. It is important to identify the inanimate objects in a problem.
You must choose your battles. You cannot fight against just any element of a problem. Where are the stones? Where are the trees? If you’re trying to solve a problem, but you’re not getting anything but bloody knuckles, perhaps you’re just fighting an inanimate object. The objects you need to fight are almost always contained within yourself.
You should first look inside of yourself and see what you can attack inside of you that might fix the problem. Have you acted immaturely? Have you been selfish? Have you been negligent? Have you made a mistake? Fix it first, then reevaluate. Continue the process until the only things left that could possibly be keeping the problem alive are outside of you. Then look closely at things that reside in your circle of influence. Is there anything that you definitely have some degree of control over that could be changed to fix the problem?
Finally, as a last resort, if nothing in your circle of influence can solve the problem, you begin looking for the right targets on the outside. You find the responsible individual. You find the right tactic. You plan ahead. You strategize. This is where one of my favorite books comes into play. The Art of War taught me a lot about fighting to win.
But in the beginning, ensure that you are not about to engage in battle with an inanimate object. That would just be silly.
“We’d all like to vote for the best man, but he’s never a candidate.”
- Kin Hubbard
Oh boy. Here we go.
I guess it was “Super Tuesday” or something today. In case you haven’t picked up on it before, I’m not really that into politics. Politicians and their squabbling bother me. I know they do a lot of important work too, or at least they fill a necessarily evil position (or is it a necessary evil?). Either way, they all bother me.
Since this is a presidential election year, I’ll probably share quite a few political quotes with my thoughts. I have several.
This quote’s straight forward and requires little to no explanation.
I can never pick which candidate to vote for because they are all made of plastic, full of hot air and empty calories, prone to flattery and lies, and their singular goal is to make me want them to lead me – not to fix problems. I don’t want a leader who is willing to do all of that political malarkey to get my vote. I would fight my way through a zombie apocalypse to get to the polls if a candidate seemed truly honest, sincerely interested in reason and logic, benevolently invested in improving the country, and made little to no effort to win people over with butt-kissing and nitpicking. The butt-kissing and nitpicking over insignificant issues always turns me off. So they can all forget about my vote until someone comes around who deserves it.
“Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.”
- Dame Edna Everage
Some of my favorite wisdom comes from quotes by comedians. Something about understanding the science of humor must make comedians unusually wise. They just seem to really “get” what it means to be alive.
Obviously this is not a universally applicable rule, but I particularly love when comedians make wisdom funny. I suppose my favorite way to deal with life is to make light of it. Sure, there are some things that should be taken seriously, but everything else should be taken as lightly as possible.
It always bothers me when people react to jokes with law suits, violence or threats.
One of my favorite Internet humorists is David Thorne. He often pokes fun at people, sometimes pushing the joke past “the line” with certain individuals. I believe the problem these people have is that they take themselves too seriously.
The existence of these people is a thorn in the side of anyone wishing to make humor in a way that could be considered even remotely offensive. I, myself, have recently come up against this problem while attempting to promote my own work of humorous fiction. I have to keep reminding myself that not everyone will be able to take the jokes for “jokes.”
I think that, most of the time, when people can’t take a joke it is because they are taking it personally. This means that somewhere inside of them they identify with the joke in a way that personalizes it. Even if the joke wasn’t directed at them personally, they take it personally and choose to become offended. That’s when I would say that they are taking themselves too seriously. They should not be afraid to laugh at those things that they identify personally with. By laughing they can participate in the benefits of humor. They can stay happy. By choosing to become offended, not only do they miss the opportunity to feel good, they take an opportunity to become bitter and sometimes even hateful.
I, for one, love making light of as much of life as possible. I believe that even God has a sense of humor. It can make hard times bearable, it can make the sun shine on a cloudy day, and it can make good memories out of any situation. Who would want to trade all of that for living constantly at odds with the world? And, when I’m trying to make someone’s day with a touch of humor, why should I have to live in fear that he’ll take himself too seriously?
This particular instance with my friend Autumn (yes, she’s female) could have turned out ugly:
Lucky for me, most of my friends don’t take themselves too seriously. Now if only that attitude were a little more universal.
“Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”
- Terry Pratchett
The truth is, I can’t resist a humorous quote. I especially love humorous quotes that contain blatant, glaring truths. In this case, there may not be a whole lot of philosophical value, but at least it’s both true and funny.
Just a quick disclaimer: I wouldn’t ever recommend that you actually set a man on fire to provide him with warmth. There may be certain, unfavorable legal actions taken against you afterward.
“I don’t make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts.”
- Will Rogers
What makes a thing funny? How is it that a person commenting on our government’s actions could be mistaken for a comedian?
Of course, the reality behind this quote is that Will Rogers was indeed a comedian and a humorist (among many other things), but in search of the deeper truth buried in these words, I ask myself, “What makes a thing funny?” Especially in the context of government, such a question seems odd and out of place. The government tends to be dry and boring, how could its products bring laughter to us?
Some of the most universally humorous situations contain out-of-place elements or ideas – they don’t really make sense, but our minds can connect them anyhow and we chuckle as a result. Perhaps that’s why the government makes us laugh when reported by someone talented enough to spot the funny in the situation. The government is constantly doing things that don’t make sense. When reported in their context, these nonsensical actions are inherently funny.
As someone with a direct view into the inner workings of a small portion of our government, I can attest to the truth of this quote. You don’t need to take the government’s actions out of context to get a good laugh. You can just take a look at the facts and bust your gut all day long.
“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”
- George Bernard Shaw
I wanted to get this one done early and “stick” it to the front page of this blog because it is going to be a common theme in this project. Many of the most beloved quotes in history are humorous in nature. I love getting a little chuckle out of a quote, and it’s nice when the wisdom behind the humor is obvious. Many times, though, the wisdom may not be so obvious.
One of the missions behind this little project is for me to discover the hidden wisdom or truth behind every quote, funny or not. Of course, many times my interpretation of the truth will be highly personal, but that’s why I want your comments too.
I encourage any visitor to this site who finds a quote they like to share a brief comment on the quote. In this way we will all find the truth and wisdom behind the quotes we love.
