There is a great point to pointlessness, no?
Guilty pleasures, costumes, stupid human tricks, the infamous "unromantic dictionary"--all are totally worthless in the great weight that tends to be living, but without them I am certain that thoughts alone would crush me. I need silliness. I need people to be goofy.
Today my coworker, Hampton, grabbed a York peppermint patty out of one of our numerous candy jars and then leapt up onto the arm of our couch and reenacted an old commercial. It was unplanned. It was unexpected. It was not gentlemanly.
What it was, though, was friggin' hilarious.
In the now-classic Monty Python movie, "And Now For Something Completely Different" there is an Army General who continually interrupts skits to tell them, "Stop that! It's silly!" All too often, his is the voice I hear in my head while I am busy wearing something on my head (as most know I am prone to do. There is something Freudian about this, I can assure you) or singing too loudly, or whatever it is that I'm doing. But I can't help it; I need to be silly.
As a generation, we've had so many more outlets for absurd humor and I think it's helped us. Just take a look at Youtube.com or myspace pages, The Daily Show, Conan O'Brian or Dave Sedaris. We have the means to boldly show the creative ways we entertain, and our methodology has evolved in turn. Pain, disappointment, frustration, doubt, insecurities--all can be expressed safely in humor, in placing them in public and having the audience identify and laugh with you.
I have no neat conclusion, I have nothing but thoughts on this. Well, I have some rather silly hats too.
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