Everything is a joke.
Modern life gives us three real choices. All of them require going insane. These choices are laughter, mediocrity, and axe murder. Let’s look at our options.
Mediocrity is the timeless art of survival through denial. It is the easiest and most common way of going insane. The mediocre survivor pushes all of life’s insane paradoxes to the back of his mind in favor of tomorrow’s toga party, movie marathon, or board meeting. Mill’s individualism collides with the Facebook feed. Insanity sneaks into the mediocre survivor’s mind on two fronts. The daily effort to maintain a second version of reality is one problem. But is nothing next to it’s brother: the consant sense that something is wrong. This creeping unease is responsible for more suicides, divorces, nervous breakdowns, and sports car purchases than any other force. Advertising is the timeless art of exploiting this unease.
Our second option is axe murder. This path doesn’t necessarily entail literally charging at your neighbor with a fire axe, though it often takes that form. It is simply lashing out at your environment. The denial fueling mediocrity is replaced with furious anger. Small acts of web trolling join with spree arson in this category. The axe murderer replaces the unease of mediocrity with estrangement from humanity. This path provides far more catharsis than mediocrity, but has a tendency to burn out quickly. To say nothing of the body count.
Finally, there is the third option. Laughter. Looking directly into the abyss with a dollar store kaleidoscope. Laughter allows the smile of mediocrity and the realism of axe murder to co-exist. You are still indisputably insane. But that insanity is better for your mental health than taking your environment seriously. If your city is burning, you might as well play the fiddle.
Laugh with me. You’ll be better off.