Humor: The Divine Antidote for Exaltation of Ego

Humor helps us let go of self-centered compulsions that grip us with thoughts like, "Without me, life can't go on," "I am the only one who can do this," and "What will happen ifI am not there?"  One philosopher aptly describes humor at, "The divine antidote for exaltation of ego."

When we can chuckle at ourselves, we remind ourselves that we are human, that we need to let go every so often, and most of all, that we should stop playing God.  These admissions help us to calm anxieties that arise from a false sense of importance in which we feel everything begins and ends with us.  Humor breaks us out of a self-centered world in wich we tend to live.  G. K. Chesterton, who knew human nature well, once said that when we get totally caught up in our own little worlds, we become like the moon, which is a circle without outlets.  Once so inscribed, we are left only with ourselves, and too much of that turns us into lunatics.

- From The Promise of Virtue

by Eugene F. Hemrick