Opinions will differ as to what is the most important quality God gave man for coping with life. Ironically, belief in God itself would probably be a common choice. Perseverance would be cited, as would altruism, admirable choices both. My pick would be sense of humour; it is what pulls people through some of the most wrenching calamities or soothes their daily lives. The ability to laugh at a set of forbidding circumstances, to see the comical side of a trauma, can often help us to gain a less daunting view of the matter and lessen that overwhelming effect. It helps us to achieve balance in our views and priority in our actions.
In our daily life, a sense of humour works to ridicule and thereby puncture the balloons of pomposity and arrogance. Two of our current Members of Parliament, for instance, known for their absurdly pompous pronouncements, would benefit greatly from seeing themselves through a humourous lens that shows them, objectively, how ridiculous they are. It may not eliminate the silly rhetoric, but it would palpably reduce it. Unfortunately, sense of humour is rarely something we learn or discover, or are led to, but appears to be something we inherently possess, like cognitive ability or athletic prowess.
Humour as an existential resource is an invaluable prop. It is there in the earliest of cave drawings, and it abounds today in every aspect of
