Coping through Covid with Comedy
i don’t like covered
it’s kind of getting old and you know
what i wish
i wish covered worked in dog ears so now
it would be about 12 and starting to hit
puberty that wonderful stage in our
lives
just to give everyone a bit of context i
moved from south africa at the end of
2019
which meant that i had to wait a month
before i could start school and have a
social life
when the time finally came for me to
start school it was the beginning of
february
and school shut down in the middle of
march
if my math is correct i had about six
weeks of in-person school but i only had
six weeks of in-person school so i don’t
know if my math
is correct after everything
shut down everything went online i mean
even my doctor’s appointments
at one point i was nearly shoving the
phone up my nose to get a better angle
on a bump
which turned out to be a pimple
after this i was very lonely i had no
friends
and i was very unsocial so
as a social event my mother signed me up
for a sailing course
i’ve never been sailing in my life
anyway
i go to the sailing course expecting
poseidon
and you know what i get i get seventh
grade boys
which is not a total loss because
i can play fortnite now so yay
after the sailing adventure i was lost
i was trying to reinvent my life into
something i couldn’t do
i felt emotionally and technically
physically isolated
i had lost hope in myself and the world
so what do you do when you lose hope
you binge watch a tv show in this
in my case this tv show was the office
i know very basic but experiencing that
laughter every morning before online
school
made me feel more confident and content
i was interested in why i felt this way
so reluctantly
i did some research when i got to
writing this part of my speech i’d been
writing
for about 30 minutes so that means you
take like a three-hour break just to
even things out you know but something
inside of me told me i had to keep
writing
but something else inside of me told me
that i should look up five minutes of
stand-up comedy
so i looked up five minutes of stand-up
comedy
i clicked on the first video that popped
up but my school-issued chromebook
had restricted it just like it
restricted the words
breast cancer for a biology project
in the end i had to carry on writing and
change my topic for for my biology topic
can i see a raise of hands from everyone
who knows the saying
laughter is the best medicine i’m just
kidding this is online um
i’ll just pretend about 75
yeah that’s a good number interesting
yeah
it is scientifically proven that
laughter can lower your stress levels
laughter doesn’t just lighten your
mental load but it can encourage
physical change when you laugh it
intensifies the way you take an
oxygen-rich air
and this air energizes many organs your
heart your lungs your muscles
it just it sounds like a replacement for
exercising to me
a spirited laugh can make your stress
response go up and down
increasing and decreasing your heart
rate and blood pressure
in the end the outcome of this is
a relaxing feeling
in the long run loft can improve your
immune system
when negative and uncomfortable thoughts
infest your mind
it can cause chemical reactions that can
bring more stress into your system
but by laughing you release
neuropeptides
the things people used to eat in 2017 no
don’t eat those they can kill you anyway
moving on
for people who experience depression
sometimes due to chronic illness
laughter can diminish your depression
and or anxiety
and last but not least laughter can
improve personal satisfaction
laughter can help you get through
difficult situations
ours being our little body covert 19.
laughter helps form relationships it
helps you connect with others
to be honest after reading all of this i
didn’t believe it
comedy and laughing was not something i
was serious about
i thought of comedy as something people
just messed around with
something people did just to have some
fun have a good laugh with some friends
which don’t get me wrong is a part of
comedy but
ironically it can become very serious to
someone
summer of 2020 best sum of our lives
right
no it was horrible but it did change
mine
some of 2020 best sum of our lives right
no it was horrible but it did change
mine
i decided that i was going to go and
volunteer at the local food bank
at the food bank a variety of people
come in daily
but one person in particular rarely
stuck with me
this person was a complete stranger
someone i’d never spoken to
in my life and the first word that came
out of this person’s mouth were
joke do you want to hear a joke
and to be honest again well i’m being
very honest today
i didn’t i was in a bad mood i’d been
standing on my feet for hours
and ironically it was hot in olympia
but i did welcome it because i wanted to
test the theory about what laughter can
do to you
after hearing this joke i realized
that everything said about what laughter
can do to you
is true after hearing this
and coming to the realization that
laughter can help you through difficult
times
i knew that i was going to make it a
daily goal to make someone laugh
i knew it would make their day better
and i knew it would make them feel good
about themself
and help make others feel good about
themselves
you don’t have to be good at telling
jokes or writing comedy to make someone
laugh
you just need to notice the humor in
different situations
i remember the first time i went driving
i was very serious i was going to be
this professional
formula one driver i was going to be
amazing but
after nearly crashing the car a few
times i noticed the funny side of things
i can drive perfectly fine now well half
perfectly fine
i’m going to leave you with something to
think about
what will be the joke that makes you
notice how
important it is to laugh what will be
the joke that
changes your perspective on comedy and
what will be the joke
that makes you see humor in the
situation
robin williams once said no matter what
the world tells you
words and ideas can change the world
well that was my idea
and i hope it changes your world thank
you
you