To spare you the lame excuses, the main reason behind my absence is, obviously, my laziness. There would be days when I woke up in the morning determined that I'd update my blog, only to snooze through the night without any new content.
Coming up with the right topic was not that easy either. I could have just written an update on my previous post about my so-called little crush, as many of my dear readers have suggested. But then again, I don't want this blog to turn into a chronicle of my miserable romantic adventures.
Anyway, let's get back to the focus of this post. According to sources familiar with a functional calendar, today is April 1st, also known as April Fools, also known as the day you can mess with folks, make stuff up, and pretty much turn into a clown without, for the most part, consequences.
Which leads me to wondering: why can't every day be April Fools day?
Obviously I'm not advocating for legalization of year-round bullshit - this planet already houses more than enough governments and politicians. What I'm focusing on here is the "without consequences" part. Yes, I do believe that you should be able to crack jokes without consequences.
I'm sure many of you at this point are thinking to yourself: that's not how it should work. But allow me to clarify, a joke is different from an insult. Insults often, as they should, come with consequences. But a joke, by its very definition, means no harm to the receiver.
Of course it's difficult to draw a clear line between a joke and an insult. A clowny guy by nature, I've crossed that line more than a few times and paid dear prices, but the frequency of such instances is low enough for me to continue cracking jokes at my friends' expense. The majority of my American friends in college, those who have talked to me more than five times, have said stuff along the lines of "Huy, you're the funniest Asian guy I've ever met."
Not that having the best sense of humor among a group of stereotypical nerds is something to be proud of... Actually forget about it, I take that as a compliment. Thanks guys.
Anyway, my point is: a joke is harmless, and should be taken that way.
But that doesn't mean you should go out and poke fun at every person in your field of vision. From my personal experience, there are three types of people whom I identify as non joke-takers: people whom I've just met, people who don't know me well enough, and people whom I know can't take a joke to save their life.
The first two categories are pretty self-explanatory. As for the third, honestly, I do feel bad for them. It's perfectly fine to not have a sense of humor, as each individual is born with different traits. But if you take offense to every little joke thrown at you, I'm sorry, your life must be pretty sad.
That said, even if I disagree with their approach, I can at least tolerate this type of people. They don't like jokes, I'll let them be. But the worst are those who feel it's perfectly fine for them to make fun of other people, but when the joke's on them, they would inexplicably throw the most ridiculous fit you can ever imagine.
Those are the people for whom I have absolutely zero respect, even if they somehow enjoy successful careers. As many of you can attest, it's borderline impossible to offend me. I'm not saying that gives me leeway to make inappropriate jokes, but at least I'm not being a freaking hypocrite like this type of people.
I'm gonna put an end to my rant with a little advice for those who are frequent targets of jokes. Don't react. Because the more you react, the more incentive you're giving to the jokers to keep making fun of you. Stay cool, fire a few jokes back at them if you can. That's ten times more likely to shut them up than acting like a baby or throwing fits.
Happy April Fools!
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