If there's anything I've proven in my life time and time again, it's that the best ideas come from the stupidest seeds. The number of times I've been in a meeting of some sort and someone has said the phrase, "I know we were joking at first, but this is actually a really good idea," is off the charts. I think there are two main reasons for this. First, people do their best work when they're having fun, and joking around is no exception. However, secondly and most importantly, I think great humor and great ideas share a common ancestor: truth.
Great humor unveils a truth about our world and makes it comical by framing it in a novel way. Great ideas are solutions forged by considering a truth about our world in a novel way and figuring out how to adapt to it. Put together, humor reveals a truth, and viewing this truth through such a unique lens like comedy allows us to form unique ideas and solutions around this truth. In other words, adding a tasteful layer of stupidity to problem solving strips away the rigid constraints a problem's context is traditionally viewed in and reintroduces a new level of creativity to the solving process. And I think that's pretty cool.
Comments