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Comedy is my hobby

So, @anomadsoul had an interesting proposition. Write about your passion. I could list many hobbies but Comedy and puns are more than a “passion fancy”.

Can comedy be a hobby?

Yes, with cherries on it. Hobby is defined by the powers that be (Cambridge English Dictionary) as

ˈhɒbi/

noun

2. an activity done regularly in one's leisure
   -------------------------- time for pleasure.

Did it give me pleasure that the definition rhymes?

Is rhyming odd things, puns and downright silliness done regularly by me

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- hehehe

Why comedy?

This is the serious portion of the post. Comedy is the antidote to sadness. Sadness is the origin of stress and depression. I learnt early on that the more humor you infuse in life or even notice, the easier it is to combat the stress monster.

It is like having a friend in every situation. I have been known to laugh unexpectedly in extremely melancholy situations. I used to care what people thought - but now I don’t.

At a time when I struggled with darkness, it was difficult to smile, but as I slowly recovered, so did my sense of humour. A lot of dark happenings in your life can be taken with a pinch of salt with the help of humour.

Maybe it’s your friend who has an irrational fear of spiders or their wife. Then you imagine said friend stuck in the middle of a spider and his wife and driving into the sunset with the eight legged monster.

And by the time your brain is coiled around this conundrum, you forget that you forgot to submit a report to your boss.

Dying the corporate death seems a little more tolerable.

So yes, this hobby helps with my work. It helps me tolerate it.

Someday, I hope to be funny enough so that I write for Saturday Night Live or Family Guy.

Meanwhile, I’ll settle by writing post its on my co-worker’s lunch “I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.-your well-wisher”

They don’t eat it and I get a free sandwich, so my hobby pays.

Other Benefits

The primary benefit is that you make friend left and left even if you’re dyslexic. Humour is a universal language. Nothing funny than a foreigner miming that they want vegan food to a bemused german sausage vendor.

We’re good friends now. He thought I was a famous stand-up comedian.

A PG rated start

PG Wodehouse has been a great influence on my life. At a time when I was struggling to handle the pressure of preparing to go to med school, Pelham came along.

His world is a musical comedy without music. The sheer absurdity of the situations he creates takes you away from a place where humour is just seen in a magical box called TV or a stream of videos on the internet.

I began to notice the nuances. Every person has quirks that are endearing and funny. Each situation has a madness in it’s mundanity. A small inside joke with yourself is better than a tequila shot.

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." - Albert Camus

Stop worrying about what people think. I don’t follow it to a T but I T-ry.

The comedy “Writer”

Writing was never encouraged as a career in my family. But I loved reading comics and funny stories. I was the comic relief at parties and was happily chugging along.

But then I grew up.

Med School was the destiny chosen for me. I couldn't deal with it. My mind did not dwell on physiology or anatomy. It made funny limericks about my professors or poems about DNA.

Years later, I started blogging. The old feelings came back. I met some wonderful people at The Writer’s Block who inspired me to write again.

It was the chance mention of that same DNA poem that put me on the right track. It was science delivered as puns.

I learnt about rhythm in poetry from @damianjayclay.

Since then, I’ve gone on to write funny poetry about a world where laughter is forbidden, crypto and speed dating for dictators.

A Funny Block

Everyday I talk to tens of people from different time zones, nationalities and cultures. We bond through humour.

I remember this one time someone asked me to write a poem on milk. I wrote it in chat complete with puns.

Then there was the song about bacon. This one is ironic since I’m a vegetarian. I collaborated with two great steemians to bring this to fruition.

We make up situations to relieve the monotony of daily life.

For example we pretend one of us is a bot. Or we would just tease each other by begging for a flag.

Practicing not laughing

Unfortunately my hobby is such that I can’t turn it off. If I find something funny, I have bite my inner cheeks or stifle a giggle. In board meetings, client calls this phenomena tends to be harmful.

So while others practice their hobby, I have practice to suppress mine.

Once during a conference call, someone had not muted their phone. We could hear his wife yelling at him for ignoring her. I laughed outright. Unfortunately I was also not on mute.

I was very hot under the collar but thankfully not fired.

Comedy Open Mic

The latest thing to stoke my fire is the great contest- Comedy open mic created by some mediocre and deranged individuals.

It is a great way to explore comedic talent on steemit. It encourages craziness and if anyone fancies themselves as funny, please do enter.

Laugh!

Learn to laugh at yourself and small jokes that nature plays on us.

Like why are dictators so short?

Why does autocorrect urin everything?

Cultivate it alongside your other hobbies. Because a stress free existence lifts you up.

It should be a fun-knee jerk reaction ( I’ll see myself out)

Drops mic

boss was passing by

get me a job

PS: Humour me , I’m mad about puns.