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Laugh Till You Cry

My Dickinson train-of-thought went off the rails yesterday, so my plan to right the ship today is to pump the brakes a bit and try to stay in my lane. Before I put the cart before the horse, though, let’s hope for smooth sailing ahead! LOL – how’s that for mixing metaphors?

I began yesterday’s post with introductory remarks about Helen Vendler’s book Dickinson, Selected Poems and Commentaries, and my original plan was to share a couple of examples of Vendler’s in-depth looks at Dickinson’s form to support if not augment the poems’ messages. I strayed, though, when I mentioned a scene from an episode of "The Simpsons" and then detoured completely after I chanced upon articles related to the University of Colorado’s humor research lab (HuRL). One milestone of HuRL was the development of Benign Violation Theory (BVT), a psychological framework to explain why cartoon violence amuses viewers.

My plan for today was to return to Vendler and share the examples I had ready yesterday; however, I’m going to put those cases on hold for at least one more day because my mind’s been mulling over all of that HuRL info and HuRL founder Peter McGraw’s work related to “what is funny.” What my mind has been stuck on was Emily Dickinson’s poem “Consulting summer’s clock”:

The basic theme of the poem, of course, centers on the passage of time, particularly how swiftly the seconds fly by (which calls to mind yet another poem, “Fly – fly -- but as you fly," shown below at the bottom of this post). The speaker of the poem, at the midpoint of summer, is shocked that the first half of the season has passed and only half the season remains (just as I am shocked that more than half of May 2026 has passed, and we’re almost at the mid-point of the year). Tempus fugit? More like, Tempus fukit!! LOL – pardon my crudités.

There are two details about this poem which I just LOVE. FIRST, take a look at lines 5 and 6: “The second half of joy / Is shorter than the first.” Dickinson’s take on “time flies when you’re having fun” is such a clever paradox. Two halves are of anything are always equal – so how could “the second half” of joy be shorter than the first? Technically, two halves of anything ARE equal; however, when engaged in enjoyable activities, time becomes distorted. We stop monitoring the clock; the hasty passage of time becomes the polar opposite to “the Hour of Lead” in “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” (shown below at the bottom of this post). The SECOND favorite detail from this poem, lines 7 and 8, concludes the work with an insightful understanding of human nature on the part of Dickinson. The statement, “The truth I do not dare to know / I muffle with a jest,” is related to yesterday’s explorations of HuRL’s work on “what is funny” and why people laugh. However, the muffled laughter here is not, in fact, related to anything funny, but something perceived as uncomfortable. The poem closes with a “truth” the speaker does not “dare to know,” and what does the speaker do? She “muffles” the information – “with a jest.” I searched, “Why do people laugh when uncomfortable?” The results included this:

“People laugh when uncomfortable as a physiological defense mechanism to regulate overwhelming emotions and release pent-up nervous energy. It does not mean you find the situation funny; rather, it is a ‘reset button’ your brain uses to reduce stress, avoid freezing, and restore emotional balance.

AN ANECDOTE: All of this reminded me of an incident I dealt with years ago when I was an assistant principal at a high school. A teacher called me to say he was sending two students to my office due to a fight. I was surprised when a boy and a girl showed up. Rarely were any physical conflicts between opposite sexes. I believe I spoke to the girl first. She told me that the young man had called her an insulting name – something involving body shaming – so she hit him. I talked to the boy next. He admitted he’d called her the name, but he said he thought it was her nickname. He said he’d heard her friends call her that name on multiple occasions, so he used the term not thinking it would make her angry. I then spoke to the girl again. I told her what the boy had told me, and she said it was true, her friends did call her that name; however, the name hurt her feelings, and she didn’t know how to tell her friends to stop. When they would call her that name, she would smile and laugh – “muffle” the insult “with a jest.” I suppose on the friends’ part, their behavior was characteristic of BVT in that they thought the teasing was benign, no actual harm done; therefore, their laughter came from a place of amity. However, her smile, her titter came from humiliation and embarrassment – laughter as a defense mechanism to cover hurt feelings, minimize pain (perhaps), and deflect her vulnerability.