How to find laughter anywhere (w/ Dan Harris and guests)

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2:04You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. On this show, I have spent the past five years interviewing writers, scientists, and all sorts of experts. And increasingly, I've come to believe that if you want to be a better human, if you want to treat other people better and to live a good life, well, one of the most important things you can do is cultivate a good sense of humor. The world desperately needs more people who are able to laugh at their own shortcomings, to notice absurdity, and to connect with others over a shared delight. And the great news is that we can find humor even in the most unlikely places and situations.

2:41So today on the show, we've got a compilation of moments from interviews in the past on our podcast that got deeper into this idea. The more that you are present and attentive to the things that bring you joy, the times when you are unexpectedly delighted, and the conversations and people who leave you giggling and giddy, the more that you'll find that you can really unearth humor anywhere, even in the supposed seriousness and hushed reverence of a silent meditation. Here's a snippet of my conversation with Dan Harris, host of the podcast 10 % Happier, talking about the unexpected similarities between humor and meditation.

3:19This is one of the ways that you for sure won me over is, you know, I'm a comedian. I really resonate with things when they're funny. I know you don't necessarily identify as a comedian, but you have a great sense of humor. There are hilarious jokes in your book. There are really funny jokes in your TED talk. And I think that is not necessarily a thing that I actually associated at all with mindfulness or meditation is funny and laughing, right? Like I think about them as like Zen and kind of like everything passes me by, but, you know, reading your book and hear you talk, I was able to see them in a different way of like, oh, No, laughter isn't the opposite of that.

3:55It can be part of it as well. Absolutely. Because it's my job now. I'm kind of like the beat reporter for Buddhism. I know all of these, a huge percentage of the living teachers today because they come through my show and I write about them in my books. And so I know a lot of these people. Like I really know them. I have done meals with them. I do business with them. They sleep over at the house. I really know these people. And they're really funny. They don't tend to emphasize the humor in their public-facing work, which I'm not quite sure why that is. I'm a little bit glad because it's created a market opening for me.

4:34But I do think that if you spend any amount of time taking a look at your mind, you will have to laugh eventually because it's ridiculous. I mean, the teacher, the meditation teacher that I work with personally, his name is Joseph Goldstein. He's, you know, a great friend of mine and just a huge figure in my life. He uses that word. It comes up a lot because if you are looking at your mind, I mean, it's it's chaos and it's embarrassing is humiliating. And but after a while, you can learn to laugh at it. And I find that that spirit is shot through many of the the teachers that I know. The greats don't take themselves seriously, because how could you after looking at your mind for an extended period of time?

5:21There's also this thing that I've been thinking about a lot with humor, how you have to be really present to notice the unusual, weird, ridiculous things in the world. Like a lot of our day to day, we're programmed both by society and just by the sheer fact that so many pieces of stimulus come at us. If we've seen something a million times, we just ignore it. And yet when you start to really look at things, that's when you can see the funny. And I noticed that comedians that I know, one of the few things that they all have in common, even if they have wildly different styles, is that anytime they notice something funny or strange, they take a note of it.

5:58That is actually quite a similar practice to some forms of Buddhist meditation, to just be noticing and paying attention to the things that go through our heads and through our perception. Gold star. That's a great observation. Observation is a huge part of comedy. And you can't observe if you're asleep. So for sure, there is an overlap right there between comedy and contemplation. Because contemplation or meditation is all about waking up. We live our lives in this kind of automatic pilot. And not much can get done when you're in that mode. And sadly, we're in that mode a lot. You know, it's bringing to mind a story about how, and I wrote about this in my first book, where I was on the beach with a friend of mine who's a very successful comedy writer.

6:44This was many years ago, but he's gone on to be way more successful. And he spotted me reading a book about Buddhism. And he said, I don't think I could go down that path because I need to stay judgmental because my comedy comes from being judgmental. But I wish that the technology worked that well, that you could start meditating and you're not going to be judgmental or cranky or crazy or whatever, all the stuff. What happens is you just get to be more familiar with the way the mind works. And so I think it can put your comedy on steroids because you can notice the judgment that's going to come inevitably.

7:19And that instead of being owned by it, you can make a joke out of it. And that's really helpful.

7:28We are going to have so many more laughter filled moments on this show, including the comedy that you can find in nature, on stage and in even the hardest and most challenging of circumstances. But first, we are going to take a quick break for some ads, so we will be right back after this.

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10:07And we are back. On today's episode, we're hearing from a range of guests from our podcast about humor. And up top, I told you that I believe that you can find something joyful and hilarious just about anywhere. Well, now to prove it in this next clip, we are going to find humor in the literal dirt, in the ground where you walk. Here is Alexis Nicole Nelson talking about the surprising moments of delight that can be found while foraging for wild plants. I also am curious about the times when people are surprised to see you doing what you're doing or foraging because they just don't understand what foraging is.

10:46Like, have you ever had someone spot you foraging and have a really strange or interesting reaction to that? Absolutely. my first year making TikToks, I was gathering some mugwort around this time of year. And two women who were just power walking together stopped in their tracks and were just like, what are you doing? And I was like, oh, you know, just gathering some aromatic herbs. I wanted to roast some potatoes tonight and I needed some mugwort. And here it is. Honestly, it was a great interaction. They had so many questions. And for them, it just wasn't, it was just not something they ever expected to see anybody doing.

11:28I think my identity maybe made it more surprising, but even if it was someone their own age, I think they would have been really surprised. And those are always really delightful moments when people approach it with just like a childlike curiosity. I love those times there are definitely other times when people approach it from a point of apprehension being like oh my god I don't know what that six foot tall very loud gregariously dressed black woman is doing so I'm gonna go ask her about it but I like to think that usually I end up changing that apprehension to delight almost every time it definitely hasn't worked every single time.

12:14I used to teach at an elementary school. I taught fifth grade. And I remember so clearly that one day we were reading a book. It wasn't even a science lesson or something. It was just a book where it kind of came up incidentally. And it said like, and they picked the lettuce out of the ground. And the kids were like, lettuce comes from the dirt. Oh, that's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. It grows out of dirt, which is like hilarious of course like you have to learn that at some point but but the other thing is and i i feel like this is maybe uh i wonder if this is the the thing that must not be said in foraging circles but i'm like they also have kind of a point it's a little gross that things come out of the dirt and that they're fed by poop and like rotting things i'm like you know what it is gross and it's delicious and that's just how things work and that's life baby Bee.

13:05It is delightful and it is often icky and there are usually bugs. That's life. That's a great phrase for life. I put that on a t-shirt. I'll buy that t-shirt. Obviously, even in that short clip, you can already just hear how much fun Alexis is. She's got such a great laugh and such a real spirit of play to her work. That ability to do big work while not taking yourself too seriously, that's something that the artists and writers Wendy McNaughton and Laurel Brakeman are masters at. They're living proof that giving yourself permission to be silly and goofy sometimes can foster a real deep creativity.

13:44Wendy and Laurel, as friends, they push each other to find delight and joy in the everyday. And together, they created something called Attention Club, a group dedicated to encouraging the act of noticing. So much of humor, so much of comedy, of laughter starts with just paying close attention. And for Wendy and Laurel, a great way to dive in headfirst is with other people. Wendy often encourages people to look at and connect with a stranger. And at first, just looking at someone you don't know well, that can be really uncomfortable. People often start laughing right away at how absurd it feels.

14:18But then it can lead to something really deep. Here's Wendy. I ask people to turn to each other, ideally a stranger, or it can be something they know, but ideally a stranger, and then draw each other for 60 seconds with two rules. The first rule is you're never allowed to pick your pen up off the paper. And the second rule is you're never allowed to look down at the paper upon which you're drawing. Okay, sounds totally disorienting. It is. But the actual point of that is that you are looking at somebody closely for 60 seconds without looking away. And moreover, you are allowing yourself to be looked at for 60 seconds.

14:59So it creates this immediate vulnerability and openness and exchange between two people that, I mean, has led to people becoming friends, you know, or like exchanging, you know, their social media information from different countries and they're staying in touch. But more so, it just takes off this little bit of the armor that we all have. So as we go forward, we're open to that exchange. And then when you follow that up with a prompt like Laurel gave. describe the last time you were wildly happy. And you told the person who drew you that story, and they told you yours. And we had each person take a few notes down on the drawing they did.

15:39And, you know, there's nothing like being in a room of strangers while they recount the last time they were wildly happy to each other using all sensory detail. It's so much fun. There is just such an incredible energy. And you could do it with someone you know well, you could do it with someone you don't know well. I do think it's fun with strangers, but it's something easy to do even around the dinner table. And part of the reason I think it's so effective is like the drawing is quote unquote bad, right? Like you don't look down at the paper, like you draw someone, it looks like a Picasso, you know, but like not a good Picasso.

16:12Yeah. There's like a floating eyeball. Oh yeah, it's so silly. Like it's a very weird thing and it forces you into, oh my God, this was enjoyable. It's actually a quote unquote good drawing. even though this looks nothing like the person. And I think that from that place then you're like, okay, we've reframed like who is bad and good at this. And the point isn't to make it look like the actual thing or the person. And I think that's huge. It goes back to what we were saying around how to help people feel more creative, I think, and how they lose it. I think part of it is not just being shamed perhaps by someone in your life saying like, oh, well, that doesn't look like our house.

16:54But it's also because you start to have tastes that you can't possibly meet. And so I think that's a part of like particularly if you're someone who loves the creative arts. Like you may love great music. You have your favorite artists. You have your favorite comics. And you realize you're not that good. And so instead of pushing through to get to the place where you find your own unique way of doing it, you're so intimidated because it doesn't look like you're heroes that you also shut down. And so I think all of this work is really about showing people like, you know, we're bad forever all the time, you know, even those of us who do it as a job.

17:29And so any of these kinds of ways where you can make yourself kind of productively uncomfortable or bad in practice is just so much fun.

17:42We're going to take another quick break and then we will be right back.

17:59This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agent tech AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge, and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade-in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tied and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving.

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20:05Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And we are back. Today, we are talking about the surprising places and unexpected moments in which we can find humor all around us. Lear de Bessonet is the founder of Public Works and the resident director at the Public Theater in New York City. For Lear, one of the biggest joys of her work is getting to create a spectacle, a striking display or performance. But as she's come to learn, spectacles are happening all around us, not just on the stage. For Lear, traveling to work every day in New York City, she's constantly witnessing spectacles. And during our conversation talking to her about this idea, it made me realize how many memories and how many images I have in my head of extremely silly things that I saw while growing up in New York City.

20:50So I grew up in New York City and I was obsessed for at least three or four years of my childhood with this street performer who performed at the South Street Seaport. And her name was the Squirrel Lady. And what she would do, her act was she would stand on an upturned like like mail crate. Right. So she just had a little stage. And then if you gave her a dollar, she would take a sleeve of saltine crackers and she would just destroy, eat them like a little squirrel. Like just like making like spraying saltine crackers everywhere. And I was like, that person is Michelangelo. That is my Da Vinci.

21:27I was like, that is the greatest genius of our time. And I would beg, constantly beg, like, can I have a dollar and can we please go see the squirrel lady? And to this day, I still think it's one of the most incredible pieces of art I've ever seen. This is now a new obsession of mine. And my question is, like, is she available? Because I would like her to be in my next production. My belief is that she retired to some mansion funded by her squirrel performance. But I haven't seen her in literally a decade. So I don't know. But if she was in a production, I would fly anywhere in the world for that ticket.

21:57I would certainly go. Anyway, there is no limit to the types of performers you can find in New York City, but also more broadly to your point, like in the world, anywhere there are people who have these like little unusual strange things that would be perfect for spectacle. Yes. And my dream is to sort of walk through life noticing those things and then to ask a person to do like whatever that thing is, to do like exactly that in the production and to somehow create the conditions within the story where that whatever that person is doing makes sense in a storytelling way. That was my dream.

22:41Two people whose jobs involve creating the conditions in which any story can be told are Dave Nadelberg and Neil Katcher, creators of the hit podcast and live show Mortified. These guys help people reframe their most tragically embarrassing childhood or teenage diary entries, and they turn them into gloriously funny, heartwarming stories that they share with a live audience on stage. It is mortifying. It is so funny. And it is an idea that we can all tap into. So I have done standup, but I also started, I was a fifth grade teacher. And the thing that has influenced my life most from being a fifth grade teacher is the idea of a growth mindset, right?

23:22That like almost nothing about who we are is fixed, that you can, you maybe have natural abilities or talents, but that you can build these muscles. And I think a muscle that mortified is so great at showing is the muscle of like, you can build the muscle of laughing at yourself. You can build the muscle of like taking this stuff and finding it to be funny and transforming it into a strength rather than a private shameful weakness. Life is not always kind. You know, it's a very comforting thing. The reminder that we mess up and like the end of us at the end of every mortified podcast and stage show, we say, what did we learn?

23:58Well, we learned a million things, but most of all, we learned that we are freaks and we are fragile and we all survived. To me, I take all that to heart. It's not just like a pithy thing, because I think these are valuable. Like there is a lesson to that. And you could, whether that comes from a thing like mortified or whether you can apply that same logic to a million other things in life. Did I say life weird? I think I did. I think I said laugh. I didn't even notice it as weird, but I love it. I have faith you'll do it better in the future though. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Growth mindset.

24:32Finally, to close out this episode, I want to leave you with a piece of a conversation that I had with Palestinian peace activist, author and travel company founder Aziz Abusara. Aziz spends the majority of his time thinking and talking about extremely difficult topics, particularly now with the situation in Gaza. But as a person, Aziz is anything but dark and depressing. He's got one of the best senses of humor of anyone I've ever met. And talking to Aziz about that, about the contrast between the seriousness of the work that he does and the lightness of his person, it illustrates for me a really important point.

25:08That it is possible to find humor in even the most devastating situation. Not always, and not for everyone. It doesn't mean you have to or that everything is funny. But sometimes humor can be more than silliness and goofing around. Sometimes laughter can be a way to momentarily release tension and to find a bit of lightness in the dark. Humor can be a survival mechanism, too. You know, we got to spend a fair amount of time together in Vancouver, and it was such a pleasure to get to know you and to see your public talk, but also to have dinner with you and talk casually. And something that I've been thinking about since then, when I think about our interactions, is how there are ways that identity can really get flattened when we talk about these big issues like the conflict in Palestine and Israel.

25:56There's this way in which you, for example, can be presented only as this very serious person, right? This victim of the conflict, but also a peacemaker. But you are also so much more than that. You're hilarious. You're funny. You're complex. You're not any one thing. So how do you personally push back against that? It's a challenge I've faced through my whole career. One, I use a lot of humor in everything I do because that's part of who I am. And if I was as brave as you, I would have done stand-up comedy more often. I've done it a couple of times and man, it is so hard to put yourself out there and hope people will laugh in the first 30 seconds of speaking.

26:37Well, certainly if there's one of the two of us that's brave, it may be that neither of us is brave, but certainly it's not me. you are you absolutely are but yeah i try to definitely show that i am not only one identity i don't want you to only look at palestinians with pity or look at us only as victims we are much more than that i grew up like many palestinians loving poetry i started writing poetry when i was seven or eight it was terrible poetry but i still wrote poetry when i was that young I used to call the radio almost every week to read my poetry. Now I'm very embarrassed of the kind of poetry I read on the radio.

27:18But that's how our culture is so different than what people think. And often I get like, oh, your culture is so much a culture of death, which is not the culture I grew up with. You have people like Sameach Al-Qasim who wrote, the day I'm killed, my killer will rifle through my pockets and he'll find three tickets, one to peace, one to the fields and the rain, and one to the conscience of a humankind. I beg you, my killer, do not waste such a thing. Do not ignore these tickets. Take them. I beg you to travel. And I say, that is one of our most famous poets. And it's not a poem about glorifying death.

27:57It's telling his killer in a time where he feels so much conflict around him, I don't want this to continue. Even if the price is my death, I don't want you to live in this reality. And that's what I want the world to know. We're not only victims. Even in this hard moments and looking what's happening in Gaza and so much death and so much suffering and so much pain, if you only see people as victims, if you only see them in one small box, it's much easier also to dehumanize them. It's much easier to not see them as normal people who have dreams, who want to be teachers, want to be doctors, want to be comedians, want to be all these things.

28:38And that's what I want people to know about me. And I want people to know about Palestinians in general, Muslims, Arabs in America. That's where we start.

28:50that is it for today's episode of how to be a better human i have been writing a book about all of this that is called humor me it's going to be out in january 2026 but before that comes out we thought it'd be fun to explore some of these ideas that have been rattling about in my head on this podcast and we're going to do that a few more times over the next few months i hope that you enjoyed this first taste as much as we did i had a great time doing this special shout out to morgan flannery who was the producer on this episode and pulled all these clips together and there are so much more to think about and discuss when it comes to laughter, humor, and being a better human.

29:20So thank you so much to today's wonderful guests. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me at chrisduffycomedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is put together by a team who are genuinely hilarious delights one and all. On the TED side, we've got high-level comedic masterminds Daniela Balarezzo, Ban Ban Chang, Michelle Quint, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina Bohanini, Lainey Lat, Tensika Soon-Manivong, Antonia Leigh, and Joseph Debrine. This episode was fact-checked by Julia Dickerson and Mateus Salas, who laugh at the very idea of a factual inconsistency. On the PRX side, we've got legends of stage, screen, and audio.

29:54Morgan Flannery, Norgil, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. Thanks again to you for listening. You are what make this episode possible. You are what make this whole podcast possible. Please, share this episode with a person who you love to laugh with. We will be back next week with more how to be a better human. Until then, take care and thanks again.

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