As of today I have discovered 4 reasons.

1.  Maybe you grew up around funny people – osmosis.
2. You learned it.
3. Practiced it.
4. All three.

In my family we always were making jokes, listening and watching comedians and verbally sparing funny ideas. Sometimes those ideas were not always in a kind way. Some were comebacks to an insult – but it was the idea that was the joke. Humor is intellectual. It’s an idea you make funny. So humor engages words and their meaning. Some more complicated than others. Humor works on many levels. Here is one of those examples.

This was story was told to me by actor Robert Donner.

Walter Matthau and his wife were driving to visit the historical Concentration camp of Auschwitz. On the way there, the couple got in an argument – including a lot of anger and yelling.After hours of viewing the camp and listening to the guides horrifying stories – they left. Minutes outside of the camp Mrs. Matthau insisted Walter stop the car, she wanted to talk to him. Being so emotionally moved by what she had just witnessed, she apologized for starting the fight on the way to the camp. She then asked if she could ever forgive him.

 “Yes, I can forgive you,” Walter said to his tearful wife, “but I have to be honest. You absolutely ruined Auschwitz for me.”