Entry 75: Humor’s Role

I wonder if it's really true that when one is in absolute sorrow, one can do nothing but laugh. I don't think I would ever be able to fully understand how sad and bitter life was for Frank McCourt, for I was born in a good family in a safe country and a rather peaceful time. All I know is laughing and crying are both good forms of releasing emotions. You always feel a lot better after you laughed or cried hard for a long time. But the humor McCourt used was a bit different. It's the kind that makes you chuckle rather than laughing out loud. So what is there to laugh? If there are things to cry about there are certainly things to laugh about. Emotions form depending on the attitude one puts into an event. It seems to me that McCourt deliberately accounts sad events in a almost indifferent way, probably because he had seen too much. However he adds small details that lighten up the general mood of his story. Those details are the everyday humor we can all find in our lives, but we don't always see them. Putting humor in art is an art itself. In fact, even though it seems like humor is about positive things, I'm starting to think that often it is build upon sad things.