National Realities and A Serious Joke

This world of ours is a serious world than we had ever though of it to be. Nonetheless, nothing should stir our hearts and our interests more than realizing that sharing fun and expressing humour is that part of humans which could be ideally described as an inseparable character exhibited by most people regardless of their tribe, origin, creed and their gender group.

Time presents decision making moments to everyone and each action we humans take suggests and determines the important issue of life or death. Nevertheless, our lives’ breath is very much precious to us although religion impresses on our minds that it is probable that life has no end and could last for ever. But at certain times of a day we go about sharing fun and expressing our good sense of humour and our jovial nature using jokes.

Some jokes are quite expensive and some touch on very trivial matters despite the fact that this world is not a place for sheer jokes. Every joke, we would agree, is meant to be exactly considered as such and one instance of a joke has the potency of leading to several other jokes. “It’s only a joke”, I was just pulling your legs” and “Did you catch the joke?” are examples of what one often would say when such a person usually made a comment we least expected from him or her.

Nonetheless, since humour itself is a very potent tool, a joke is not just meant to be a joke. They could lead to lasting positive effects when employed usefully.

Some jokes could be so clear in context and adept in meaning and they do have the chemical potency of successfully bringing to an abrupt end several endless seasons of turmoil and unrest. They could eventually lead to the opening of prison doors and they could tear prison bars apart sometimes.

Most people believe they have a Creator or a Maker from whom we derive the natural good qualities we possess. Every African believes in God and we see Him as our Maker and Creator. We accept the proverbial statement that if we have eyes, God’s eyes our biggest; if we have hands God’s hands are also thus biggest. And then if we have very good natural abilities God has more than we ordinary humans because we were all created in God’s own image.

The Hebrew writers have this in their records in the Holy Bible. Yet, for one, I have not yet come across a joke in the King James Version of the Holy Bible; a joke employed by God Himself for that matter. I cannot recall or refer to an instance like that where I read that “Yahweh” added a joke to His conversation when the Israelites approached Him in worship, in obtaining an instruction, in receiving assurance or a promise from Him. (Perhaps the Israelites did not try to make Him happy enough all the time).

But we know that in our present times or in this corporeal world people at various realms of power in offices and in many nations show their real sentiments of happiness and the feeling of joy that flood their very beings when their society meets its expected targets or achieve their valued goals. They celebrate this feeling in grand style.

Publicly they avoid all manner of pretense and hypocrisy and grant credit to who credit is due. Good leaders are the first to reveal this good habit and are frequent in taking this step or this move.

By Ebenezer K N Baiden-Amissah

P O Box LG 1254 Legon Accra Ghana