“Humour is a disguised form of spiritual discipline: an art form dedicated to the never-ending multi-contextual and multivalent nature of reality. A sense of humour tells us that whatever context we might have arranged for ourselves, there is always another context that makes our particular context absurd. Absurdity is the subversion of my present too-narrow belief and my too-narrow sense of my self: my appreciation of a suddenly revealed absurdity tells me, even in the midst of laughter, that I am willing to learn. Humour is my saviour. Shared humour equally appreciated, helps to save us both, shared humour tells us we are on the edge of discovering or seeing something new again, together.|

David Whyte is an Anglo-Irish poet and philosopher. He writes beautifully about many themes in psychology, reaching deeply into the inner psycho-spiritual world. This is the opening paragraph on his chapter on Humour, from his book Consolations II (Canongate 2024). I highly recommend Consolations I as well.