Joke. To you. <susitse.art>
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Has someone's joke ever extinguished your light?
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My light has been extinguished. I have both experienced and witnessed how the harm can be done under the guise of a joke. How some try to excuse everything by simply saying, "It was a joke." Like it would make everything back to normal.
And maybe too often, we do forgive. We forgive because we aren't entirely sure what happened. It all happened so fast. Almost everybody laughed but us.
How can a joke hurt me so deeply? Why am I not having a good time?
We fall silent. We wonder if the fault lies with us, for not getting the joke. We ask ourselves if we really are as stupid and humorless as we are claimed to be.
We spend a long time in our silence. And eventually, it might just be easier to forgive. Maybe the other person didn't mean any harm. Maybe we are just too sensitive. Maybe. Maybe.
We forgive. Yet, for some reason, the echo of the pain never leaves us. No, for something got broken when the joke was spelled out. The way we trusted the one who used us as their material, is broken.
Jokes exist, of course they do. But the point of a joke is to be funny to everyone. It's not meant to hurt anyone, nor is it meant to happen at someone else's expense. If a joke does cause hurt, one must be able to apologize for the mistake. That's when we are happy to forgive.
It sounds obvious. Yet, many hurtful jokes are not mistakes. Sometimes are acts of abuse disguised as humor. Where the blame is shifted onto us when we object.
Fortunately, we don’t have to stay in silence. Fortunately, we don’t have to forgive. It's not that we are too sensitive. If we are hurt, we are hurt.
This is why we have every right to defend ourselves and our moments of happiness. We have the right to ask the other person, "What was funny about that joke?" More often than not, those who deliberately mask malicious intent as a joke, cannot answer that question.
That's when we should sit in silence and think. Think whether that person, and their brand of humor, is the kind of thing we want in our lives.
I had a birthday recently, and that inspired the visual side of this piece 🐺🩷 It’s a sad comic and story today, but so true for so many of us. I hope you liked this.
(To clarify: this is all part of the artist's caption!)