How to find the humor in everyday life (with Jo Firestone)
How to Be a Better Human
TED
4.1 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2021
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When was the last time you really, really laughed? For some people, laughter comes easily and anything can set them off. But for many of us, finding humor in everyday life is something we might leave to the professionals. Jo Firestone is a comedian--and long-time friend of Chris’s--who frequently teaches all kinds of people the art of stand-up comedy. In today’s episode, she talks about how humor can be an act of connection, and how comedy can help us see the lighter sides of life, even in difficult times. Case in point: over the last year, Jo taught socially-distant stand-up to senior citizens over Zoom. Now, her students will be the stars of their very own comedy special, “Good Timing” which airs later this month. Barbara Bova, one of Jo’s hilarious students, also joins to share the comedy tips she learned and to tell some great jokes. Find more about Jo on her website at jofirestone.com and check out “Good Timing” on October 15. To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ted Audio Collective. |
| 0:02.0 | Audio Collective. |
| 0:04.0 | You're listening to How to Bea |
| 0:09.0 | You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm your host Chris Duffy. On today's |
| 0:14.2 | episode we're talking about comedy and humor and personally I rely very |
| 0:18.2 | heavily on jokes and laughter to get through hard times. I rely on jokes and laughter to get through all times but especially |
| 0:24.7 | when things get stressful, when they're uncertain like they are right now, I feel like |
| 0:30.3 | we sometimes really need to puncture the seriousness and the stress with a good deep laugh. |
| 0:35.3 | I am a big believer in that. |
| 0:36.8 | I literally have a piece of paper taped up above my desk that says laugh hard every day. |
| 0:41.5 | I love that. |
| 0:42.4 | I try so hard to seek that out for myself and I also try really hard in my work to give that to other people. |
| 0:49.6 | Now at the same time I often have doubts about the power or the necessity of comedy. |
| 0:56.0 | When there are so many huge problems in desperate need of being fixed, |
| 1:01.0 | it feels kind of ridiculous to be like, what the world needs now are my little |
| 1:06.8 | jokes. I am basically a hero. I don't think that that checks out. That's not how I feel. |
| 1:13.5 | But based on the conversations that I've had |
| 1:15.9 | with all of the incredible guests on this show, |
| 1:18.3 | I do think that it's striking that the best humans |
| 1:21.6 | they're able to do both. |
| 1:23.0 | They work on the real problems, they don't ignore them, |
... |
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