Laughing at yourself

I've been on a George MacDonald fairy tale reading kick this year. Recently, this meant reading his fairy tale The Light Princess. [Note: This is your chance to stop and read the fairy tale before I discuss an unexpected element of the story.]

When I first saw the title of this fairy tale, I thought of "light" as in what allows us to see and is the opposite of dark. I'm sure MacDonald meant for his readers to have this sense of the word "light" in their imagination when hearing the title for the first time. In reality, the princess is the "light princess" because of a curse making gravity not affect her so she has no weight.

How can I be sure MacDonald wanted his readers to have the wrong sense of "light" in mind at first? Because the fairy tale talks about puns.

Early in the story, the king and queen have a discussion about what to do about their daughter that ends up discussing puns:

 For the king hated all witticisms, and punning especially.
[. . .]
"My dear queen," said he, "duplicity of any sort is exceedingly objectionable between married people of any rank, not to say kings and queens; and the most objectionable form duplicity can take is that of punning."

MacDonald is criticizing punning in a fairy tale whose title is a pun! In other words, MacDonald is laughing at himself, and the story playing on themes of seriousness and humor (or, if you like, groundedness and levity) benefits as a result.

Being able to laugh at yourself is a very helpful trait because it shows self-awareness. It shows you can view your thoughts and actions as others view them from the outside, and recognize when you are being silly, ridiculous, or self-absorbed. It helps you recognize and admit your weaknesses and keeps you from thinking too highly of yourself.

Another of my favorite literary quotes addresses this idea. I've quoted it before and I'll probably quote it again. Prince Myshkin remarks in Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot:

"You know, in my opinion it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous, if not better: we can the sooner forgive each other, the sooner humble ourselves; we can't understand everything at once, we can't start right out with perfection! To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well."

Many people are afraid of making mistakes and looking ridiculous. I'm actually one of them, but, being a musician, my career involves situations where I make public mistakes all of the time. But I know what to do about it. Instead of shutting down in response and being crippled by mistakes, I recognize my weaknesses or silliness, laugh at myself, and then go about working to improve for next time.

And if you ever see me laughing at you, it's probably because whatever you did reminded me of a time I did the exact same thing myself; and I probably messed it up even worse and in a more ridiculous manner. So let's not be afraid to laugh at each other as we help each other improve our weaknesses and navigate life.