Tosikko: The Person Without a Sense of Humor - Finnish

On believing in the healing power of laughter and setting out to fill our lives with humor as a rebellion

The duty of comedy is to correct men by amusing them.

Moliere

One of the most annoying things that can happen in the world is when you tell a joke that you think is hilarious and the person you expect to laugh doesn't even smile; they just stare at you blankly.

You believe you're one of the funniest people on the planet and wish you could brag about it, but you'd rather crawl under the ground and become invisible. It is not enough to go to the bottom of the earth, especially if this occurs in the middle of a crowd; it is better to move towards the magma layer.

In this situation, there are two options. The first possibility is that the joke you find amusing is not amusing to almost anyone else except you because it is a cold joke. There is nothing to be done in this case. Either keep your jokes to yourself or get used to the fact that they will not be laughed at.

The second possibility is that the person with whom you are joking lacks a sense of humor. Being humorless is the worst thing that can happen to a person. It is preferable, in my opinion, to have as little contact with such people as possible. Because they will spread their pessimism to youand cause putting you off life.

In Finnish, they have a word for humorless people: Tosikko

To be honest, I wonder how this word was derived. What happened at the moment of its first formation? Who is the first Tosikko? But I can see that humor is an important thing for Finns, because they have the need to identify a person who lacks a sense of humor with a special word.

If someone asked me what I would advise someone to look for in a marriage partner—I hate giving and receiving advice, but let's say they asked me—I would say to marry someone you can laugh with. Who could be better and more caring than a person who can laugh with you sincerely, who makes you laugh, and who does it with pleasure? Of course, there are many other advisable personality traits, but I think being able to laugh together is one of the most important ones. Thank God, I have achieved this without being very conscious of it.

Humor is the most beautiful thing that happens to human beings. Laughing is the best action we can take. Laughter heals the wounds of the soul; it minimizes and trivializes problems; it makes unsolvable issues seem solvable; and it gives people strength.

Laughter is the most contagious act in the world. Laughter unites people. When laughing at a joke, everyone appears to be a good person. A person who laughs is good, because everyone is good when they laugh sincerely. You want to be friends with them; you feel that you can achieve something together with them and that you can trust them.

Laugther is rebellious. It’s an unpreventable scream at the bitter realities of life. The strength of the smaller one in the face of big and powerful ones. 

Humor is a clever way of saying "laughter rebellion’. Most of the time, it's our one and only solution to rely on. So it’s survival to keep a wide place for humor in our daily lives.

Notes & Reads:

In the book The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny, Professor Peter McGraw and writer Joel Warner set out to explore what makes things funny. They conducted nineteen experiments around the world to discover the secrets of the concept of humor.

For the first time, they established a theory of ‘what makes things funny?’ Obviously, this book is a great helper for comedy writers or creatives, but on the other hand, who wouldn’t want to write something amusing? A writer? Clearly not. Any writer would die to learn those secrets, or, let’s be more humble, to learn those useful clues.

Even if you’re an ordinary person, it would be great to learn to be more funny when making jokes.

It sounds like I’m advertising the book, but I'm certainly not; I don’t have any commission or affiliate agreements on the book. Those are my own thoughts as a completely and thankfully free author.

Have a great week and weekend full of humour. Till next week.

— Gulsun

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