what are we laughing at?

I like laughing, I do, and fortunately for me, a lot of things make me laugh. From Wes Anderson's "dark humor" to Dumb and Dumber slap-stick, to the "harsh" humor of Forgetting Sarah Marshall to the satire of South Park to squirrels on water skis. There are few forms of humor that don't get a laugh out of me. I'm also really good at laughing at myself. Life is just too intense and we humans are just a little too ridiculous for anyone to take themselves so seriously that they can't recognize their own ridiculousness and laugh.
Being able to laugh at myself is something I am proud to say I do really well. A peculiar quality to be proud of, but if you grew up in my family you would know that the ability to laugh at one's self is a skill that one must be dedicated to cultivating. Now, society applauds the ability to laugh at yourself; good, that's great. And like most things, my family took starting-point ques from the mainstream and then ran to an inappropriate extreme. This is the story of humor in the Kalinowski Family.
Growing up, Funny was king. Now, most families have their quirks and twists, but because we lived in the literal woods and were fairly isolated, homeschoolers, we had no other forces to sort of, balance us out. Family quirks held significantly more developmental weight in our homeschooling family then they would have ever held, had we also been surrounded by additional developmental forces. We weren't and they did, making my family's obsession with Funny a major carving tool in my person.
In my family, the ability to say with perfect delivery, the most hurtful thing in the funniest possible way, could only be trumped when the recipient was not only able to laugh at, salute and swallow that statement but then instantaneously produce a reciprocation even more witty and hurtful. I realize that kids in schoolyards practice the same "one upping" dance, but the difference with us was, this cutting game was played amongst homeschooling siblings that knew everything about each other - including deepest doubts and fears. Another key, damaging difference being that, schoolyard kids can walk away from a bout of "friendly teasing" and say to themselves, "I hate that fucking douche bag," while us siblings on the other hand, had to genuinely convince ourselves that the cutting statements made by our siblings were in fact, just funny and not at all hurtful. They were your siblings and classmates; no good burning bridges, they were all you had and there was no making new friends with some other, nicer kid in the class.
Beginning this life as a emotionally sensitive, easily manipulated ball of mush, I was of course, the bully's dream target of mockery. With three older siblings and two younger, I had no choice but to grow some thicker skin. Although I did improve over the course of my first 13 years, I was never very good at the hurtfully funny retort portion of the game; I couldn't think of something mean about the other person fast enough. And because sinking wasn't an option, the way I learned to swim was by becoming an expert at "taking the joke." Proving that I not only caught the sarcasm and appreciated the joke by laughing at, and then elaborating on my sibling's joke about me, I found that I was able to gain back a large stake of power lost by the initial joke. Owning someone else' joke as my own, developed into a fairly dominant component of my own sense of humor and personality - hence my tendency for self-deprecating humor.

It was not until I did the whole "self-discovery" bit in college and I began figuring my shit out that I got a little self-confidence, and realized that there is in fact a difference between funny, self-deprecating humor and being pathetic and laughing along with people who are talking shit about you. I didn't get that difference until college, and I'll admit, that even though I have come a long way, I do tend to err on the side of letting people talk shit when I shouldn't let them. Side note: if I do err on the side of not standing up for myself these days, it is less because I don't have the confidence in myself or am afraid, but more because the idea of being that person who couldn't laugh along when they should have, is still more pathetic to me than the person who gets walked on. Moving on (and we are going somewhere, I promise).

When I look back, it is clear that there was an obvious progression from a the ball of mush kid that I was, to the place where I am today; a place where I may not be completely healthy or balanced but where I at least have a sense of awareness on where I want to be going. This progression was of course something that I was completely oblivious to until sometime in 2005 when I heard a very convicting sermon by my pastor, Rob Bell, about jokes and humor.
Having been able to do it myself, I found that I judged (and still do, although I try not to) people I met who couldn't take a joke or who chose not to grow a tougher skin. At the time I had a roommate named Julie, who is just a wonderful person and I love her to death, but the woman could not take a joke to save her life - not even a stupid joke like a "your mom" joke. She would get hurt and offended very easily, and made it clear that not only did she not like being teased, but she never wanted to become someone who could handle being teased. This just blew my mind. I couldn't grasp the idea of someone being perfectly OK with being a wuss. I would tell her, "Jules, if you grew up in my family, you would have been eaten alive!" and she would always say, "well, i didn't." And I kept making jokes and teasing her because in my head, these were things that "she should be able to handle," and it was not until I heard Rob speak about humor that it occurred to me that maybe I should not force Julie into being able to handle a joke, but rather just stop teasing her.
Rob's sermon was based on the notion that God does not have to accommodate humans and show us love and grace in order for us to acknowledge that He is God. He's God, He could just demand that we do, but He does; He shows us love by meeting us where we are at. Because God is in the position to accommodate, He does, because that's what love does. This really struck home, because I realized that my actions towards Julie were not at all grounded in love. Yes, Julie should be able to take a simple joke, but the reality was, she couldn't and as someone who was in the position to accommodate, I should have.
Thinking about how love actually looks, it got me thinking and eventually realizing, just how hurtful my family was and still is to each other. Even as adults, we say the meanest shit to each other - the words that you know that will cut the deepest, and yet we expect the other person to laugh and tip their hats at the wittiness of the remark. And as much as I genuinely do laugh much of the time, and how much I love how casual we get to be with each other in that kind of environment, I do ask myself, how is this love? If there is to be anyone that builds us up and makes us feel safe and at ease, shouldn't that someone be a family member? Even though we are relaxed and don't have to guard what we say around each other, you do have to always be on your guard, ready for any biting word that if you allow it to, makes you feel like shit. When it comes to my family's relationship to humor as it relates to our interactions, I am conflicted.

The truth is, life was really harsh growing up, and humor was the means by which we were able to look at and talk about the difficult realities we were facing without breaking under it's pressure. Humor made it so we could do the hard work of processing the shittiness happening around us, from our house burning down to being poor, without letting the scariness overcome us. In short, humor was our release valve. Given the choice between having grown up in a family where harsh realities were not talked about but just swallowed, versus my family's use and often abuse of humor for the sake of openness, I would choose my family every time. But that's not to say that there were no unhealthy consequences, because it's clear that there were.
I can see that I have some scars, some war wounds if you will, from having grown up "with wolves," but like all scarring events in life I am still responsible for how I choice to respond to those wounds.
On the one hand, I like that I am able to laugh in the face of any shit life throws my way. I can, and I do. I know how to survive and enjoy life even when I am scared beyond belief. I would not have that skill if it had not been forged in the ruthless crucible that was my childhood. On the other hand however, I know that I am scarred and that I now have the natural tendecy to be harsh, ruthless and careless with others. Reckless with people's feelings may be my reasonable defualt, but I don't want that to be, I don't want to be the reason for someone else's wounds. I am responsible to love like Christ, even if there is good reason for me not being very good at that. The son that is beaten by his alcoholic dad has good reason to grow up and be an asshole to his kids because that's all he ever knew, but he shouldn't. Having reason to be an asshole is not an excuse, and that's why I like how Christ-like love works so much. Christ takes where we come from into account and meets us at our starting point, but He always demands that we don't sit in and wallow but grow and be held accoutable to keep growing. The beautiful paradox of grace and accountability working together simultaneously. JC is one good fellow indeed.