Thoughts On Having A sense Of Humour

Years ago, My husband and I had a built-in aviary which included doves. A white or ‘scared’ dove became a pet when it suffered a jealous reaction from a pair of budgies. We rescued it and hand fed it. We called the beautiful bird Sammie and that began many years of our story with this wonderful creature.

He had one functional eye, the other being damaged from the angry budgies. You would think this might provide concern for the dove when navigating. Instead, what we discovered is a bird that laughed whenever he landed.

He also laughed at other times when he heard noises or sounds he seemed to find funny. For example, we took our pet with us when we had a meeting to attend. We sat at the back of the room and Sammie cooed quietly in his cage till our President of the group started talking on stage.

Sammie genuinely loved this sound of his talking and reacted with laughter to his speech. He was a big hit of the meeting since it was obvious no other speaker evoked this reaction.

Whether or not he truly found something funny as we do is a debate we can discuss on into the night. But who is to say it is not a possibility? Myself as an animal lover, I find the suggestion quite reasonable.

Also, and maybe this is of more importance, when we see something resembling our own ability to laugh about anything, we should go with it since it makes us feel better and relate to what is around us.

Sure, we are likely imposing our own values on other living things. But I also believe the universe offers us countless opportunities to laugh through other living beings and we should take them every chance we get.

And for me who was raised in a family who appreciates humour dearly, I will always use it to deal with the harder, more difficult times and to relate to others. After all, wouldn’t you rather laugh than cry? I know I would.