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Sense of Humor And Creativity

Owner
Samuel
Can you answer me one question, if sense of humor really has to do something with creativity? May be yes! There is something in between humor and creativity. Because, if we see some the world most creative and intelligent people, we will be able to know that, yes they do possess a sense of humor or they like to have good laugh. Take the example of American physicist Richard Feynman. He was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics, who did have a very well developed sense of humor!

He is described in Wikipedia as, “As well as being an inspirational lecturer, bongo player, notorious practical joker, and decipherer of Maya hieroglyphs, Richard Feynman was regarded as an eccentric and a free spirit. He liked to pursue multiple seemingly independent paths, such as biology, art, percussion, and lock picking.”

Apart, Albert Einstein is an another example of great combination of creative mind and a sense of humor. Einstein was known to be very playful and full of laughter in his lifetime. However, both these examples can be seen as coincidence. But, the fact is that, because we all are a collection of character traits! Einstein and Feynman both just happen to have a well-developed sense of humor, that had no relation to the creative work which they did, but here may be a relation between creativity and sense of humor.

Brain researchers say that three parts of the brain light up when you laugh at a joke- one the thinking part which helps you get the joke, other is the area that controls the movements of your muscles and the last is an emotional area that makes you feel good. According to humor researcher, John Morreall, laughter is a response to incongruities or stories that disobey conventional expectations.

Stories that disobey conventional expectations? Well, this is the essence of lateral thinking. At the time when other mathematicians and physicists were more conventional, Einstein was imagining himself riding on a beam of light. It was completely a different approach, or the kind of thinking which makes humor possible than to the usual analytical thinking of mathematicians and physicists.

However, this is also true that a correlation is not enough to prove causation. Or Feynman's love of practical jokes and Einstein's readiness to play and laugh didn't necessarily cause more creativity. The more valid explanation would be that their creative genius and there sense of humor were both caused by a different way of thinking.

Even if this way of thinking refers to the correlation between humor and intellectual creativity, this doesn't mean that developing your sense of humor will help you to become more creative. If you want to be creative, you need to change the deeper patterns of thought.

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