#522： What Is Wit and Why Does the World Need It？
Episode Stats
Summary
James Geary is the author of the new book, Witsend: What it is, how it works, and why we need it. In this episode, we discuss the nature of wit and how it's linked to one's all-around sense of resourcefulness. James then makes the case that puns should actually be praised as sophisticated forms of wit. We then dig into what fencing, not putting in fence in your backyard, and jazz can teach us about the role of impoverization in wit, and how we need to start being a bit more witty.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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Now, when you think about wit, what comes to mind?
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My guest today says that while humor is one part of wit, it's really better thought of
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in a broader way, as a kind of improvisational intelligence.
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His name is James Geary, and he's the author of the book, Wits End, what wit is, how it
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Today on the show, we discuss all things witty.
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We begin our conversation describing the nature of wit and how it's linked to one's all-around
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James then makes the case that instead of getting our contempt, puns should actually be
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We then dig into what fencing, as the sport of fencing, not putting in fence in your backyard,
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and jazz can teach us about the role of impoverization in wit and why we need wit more than ever in
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these days and what you can do to start being a bit more witty.
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After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is.wit.
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She's got a new book out, Wits End, what wit is, how it works, and why we need it.
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So what got you thinking about wit and deciding, we need to have an entire book dedicated to wit?
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Was it you had an experience with an incredibly witty person, or have you been trying to capture
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Well, I've always been interested in language and wordplay since I was really a little kid.
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And there are not many or any books in my house when I was growing up, but we did, my family
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One was Time Magazine, and the other was Reader's Digest.
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And I ended up becoming a journalist and actually working for Time Magazine eventually.
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And Reader's Digest, that was the place where I first discovered quotable quotes, that page
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in the magazine and every issue where you have a collection of sayings from various celebrities
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And I remember reading, when I was about eight years old, the following quotable quotes,
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the difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
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I didn't know about aphorisms when I was eight.
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But there was something about that saying in particular and quotable quotes in general
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And I just became, over the years, obsessed with that kind of use of language.
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Very concise, funny, paradoxical, philosophical.
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And I ended up going on to write a couple books about aphorisms.
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And from there, I was led to metaphor because I was trying to figure out how aphorisms work.
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Aphorisms are really just short, witty, philosophical sayings working mostly through metaphor, like
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And then I ultimately alighted on wit as the kind of the fundamental operating system in
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our brains that allows us to have these kind of witty insights and philosophical musings
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and to be able to express them, not just in language, but in all kinds of forms.
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And one of the things that the book explores is verbal.
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And I think that's the sort of the origin story for my fascination with wit.
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Were you afraid that by putting wit under the microscope, like you would kill it in the process?
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Like, you know, people who analyze jokes, like, you know, scholars who analyze jokes, like
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they make a joke unfunny by figuring out what makes a joke funny.
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Not only was I afraid of that, Brett, but I actually did that.
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I actually, the first version of the book, the first, my first, the first chapters that
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I wrote were truly horrific and just uninteresting, not funny at all, and completely uninspiring.
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And I had a little crisis, actually not a little crisis, a big crisis early on when I was trying
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to actually write the book, where I thought it would not be possible to write the kind
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Because like you say, I didn't want to write a book that completely destroyed the liveliness
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and the fun and the joy and the surprise of wit by analyzing it to death.
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And I discovered that by trying to write it in a kind of conventional, straightforward,
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nonfiction type treatment, that that's unfortunately exactly the effect I was having.
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But at the time, our son, our eldest son was in drama school.
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And he mentioned to me one day that his class was, they were watching, going to watch the
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film, some films of Buster Keaton, a fantastic silent film star from the 1920s.
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And as an example of wit, and I said, oh, wow, that's, you know, and I'm a huge Buster
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And my son, you know, our kids grew up watching Buster Keaton films.
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So I said, well, you know, you should tell your teacher that I'm writing a book about wit,
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or I'm so far unsuccessfully writing a book about wit.
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And I'll be happy to come down and give a talk about that subject.
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And to my surprise, she agreed and invited me down.
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And as part of the class, we did some improv exercises that actors do.
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And during that afternoon that that was happening, I thought, oh, this is the way, here I am standing
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in front of a group of aspiring actors who specialize in dialogue and, you know, creating
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And I thought, well, this is the way I need to write the book.
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The chapter on witty banter and verbal wit, which I was struggling with at the time, I
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need to write it like a play and show, you know, there's a classic journalistic dictum,
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I can show how wit works, how verbal fireworks, witty fireworks work, rather than trying to
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And that's how I kind of alighted on the idea to write each chapter in a different style.
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So the chapter on verbal wit, well, actually, there's a couple, one is written in the form
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of a play, another is written in the form of a rap song, lyrics to a rap hip hop song.
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There's a chapter on the neuroscience of wit, how wit works in the brain, and that's written
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There's a chapter written in iambic pentameter, the heroic couplets of Alexander Pope, an English
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poet from the 18th century, who's a great, great wit and wrote a lot about wit.
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There's a poem about the spirituality, the spiritual side of wit, which is written
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like a sermon, like you would hear in church on a Sunday.
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And once I realized that was the mechanism through which I could tell this story by writing
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in these different styles and taking on these different voices, then it became paradoxically
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And I felt like, and I hope that's also the experience of readers, that I bring wit to
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life on the page rather than kill it through over-analysis or over-explanation.
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As you said, it changes up throughout the book.
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So we've been talking about wit and I think people, most people, like they know wit when
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But I think if you pressed most people to say, what is wit?
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They'd probably be like, well, they wouldn't be able to, they'd just be hemming and hawing.
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Are there elements that are necessary for a phrase or a word or whatever to be witty?
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And I think, um, I think the first, uh, I think we tend to think when we think of wit,
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we tend to think of verbal wit and someone being funny.
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And while being funny is certainly an aspect of wit, it's not the defining characteristic
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So my definition, the one that I came to as I researched the book is wit is the ability
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to think, say, or do the right thing at the right time in the right place.
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And if you think about the way we use the word wit in everyday conversation, we say we're
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living by our wits or we've come to our wit's end, or we need to keep our wits about us, or
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someone is dimwitted or quickwitted or a nitwit, um, these are all, uh, you know, very familiar
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phrases, the way we use wit in, in just normal conversation.
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And none of them have anything to do with being funny.
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Um, what they, what they all share those expressions is, is wit as a kind of improvisational
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And that's why my definition doesn't specifically mention being funny because you can be, like
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I said, you can be witty without, without being funny and someone who, who, for example,
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is living by their wits, they're not being funny.
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They're solving problems when they have few resources.
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And part of that, um, essence involves, and I think this, this is where it intersects with
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It, it, it involves surprise or novelty because a witty saying we, we, we recognize and we
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laugh at a witty saying because it surprises us in some way it's unexpected, or it gives
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some kind of twist to, to what, what might seem familiar on the surface, but by just giving
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it a little, um, twist, it brings a new aspect of that thing to light.
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Right. So I think the, the intersection between, and, and in fact, wit, the, the original, the
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way the word was originally used, you know, hundreds of years ago in English was more to
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indicate someone's intelligence or acumen rather than their sense of humor. And if you look at the
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etymology of the word, it comes from, wit comes from a Sanskrit verb, which is vid, which
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means to see. And that's where the word video comes from. For example, the verb vid and to see
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is also a metaphor for to know, or to understand, you know, like I see what you mean, means I
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understand what, you know, what you're saying. And wit, uh, shares that same etymological root,
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the Sanskrit verb vid with the word wisdom. So wit and wisdom actually can be traced back
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to the same word. And basically their original meanings are the same. I have a book here on my
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desk, women's wit and wisdom. It's collection of aphorisms by female, uh, writers. And the title
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is actually redundant. It might as well be, you know, women's wit and wit or women's wisdom and
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wisdom because wit and wisdom really mean identical things. And so I think that's what the, the real
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essence of wit is. It's a kind of, uh, improvisational intelligence, um, spontaneous kind
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of ability to react to things in the moment, to think on your feet. And that kind of sheds
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some kind of light or provide some kind of insight on a common, a common experience or a common
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challenge or a common problem. Oh, I want to dig deeper into the, the etymology and sort of the
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concept of wit, because you mentioned resourcefulness sort of improvisation. You had a chapter talking
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about how this idea even goes back to the ancient Greeks with Odysseus, like Odysseus, he kind of
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represented this idea of metis. Uh, what, what is metis? Is that just resourcefulness? Is that,
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what is that, is that what that means? Yeah. Metis is, is a kind of, I guess the, the best way to
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translate it would be a shrewdness or a kind of mental agility, uh, involving like being able to
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improvise. And so Odysseus, you know, the, the famous example is the, the Trojan horse, you know,
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he's trying to attack, attack Troy, but the city is so well defended, they would never be able to,
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to break through. So he comes up with the plan of, you know, hiding a bunch of soldiers in this huge
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wooden horse that they're allegedly offering as a piece, a peace offering. And, you know, of course,
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the, the Trojans take it in and at night, all the soldiers jump out and slaughter everyone.
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But the whole, the Odyssey, you know, the whole, uh, epic Greek epic Odyssey is about, uh, Odysseus
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getting into all kinds of scrapes and difficult situations, partly through his own, you know,
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his own kind of ego, egoism and, uh, stubbornness, but he always manages to kind of find a way
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out. And he's, it's so Odysseus is a great example of someone who's lives by, by his wits. That's,
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that's what that whole epic is, is about him getting out of these really dangerous, uncomfortable
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situations that he's, he's gotten himself into. So I think Metis is in, in Greek mythology is,
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in Greek literature is that kind of improvisational intelligence that allows you to, to escape
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tricky situations and solve difficult problems. And there's a wonderful, Homer uses a wonderful word
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to describe Odysseus at the very beginning of the Odyssey. And the English translation is,
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is a man of many turns. And I think that's just a beautiful way to think about wit, um, because it is,
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it does have that idea of resourcefulness and being, you know, versatile in, in the face of
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adversity. And also like we were talking about a minute ago, just being able to turn something,
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you know, we say, we say, you know, he has a nice turn of phrase or you can turn the tables on someone
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or turn things around. And being a person of many turns, I think is probably, it's a really elegant
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and poetic definition of a fundamental personal characteristic of wit.
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Well, one story you also talk about that exemplifies, Odysseus exemplifying wit is verbally. So not
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only did he do witty things, but he, he said witty things. Like the one that's really famous is when
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he's in the cave with a cyclop, Polyphemus and Polyphemus asked him, what's your name? And Odysseus
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says, no one. Right. And it's sort of, it's like a pun. I forget, isn't there, there is like a pun.
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If you look, if you know the Greek, that is a pun, correct?
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Yes. So the pun there is actually on the word metis. So there's different ways in ancient Greek
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and I am by no means an ancient Greek scholar, but the way that you can say, I am no one in a couple
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of different ways. One way is, is involves the word metis. It's, it's a different word from the,
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the, the one we've just been discussing, but it sounds exactly the same when it's said aloud,
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which is basically what a pun is. It's a, it's two different words that sound the same
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and have two different meanings. And so when in that scene where he's trying to escape the
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cyclops, he's actually blinded the cyclops. He's gotten them drunk. So, you know, the cyclops is kind
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of passed out on the sofa and Odysseus blinds him. And so that he and his soldiers can escape from
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the cave that they're trapped in. And when, when he does that, the cyclops screams, you know,
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he says, who is, who, who's done this to me? And Odysseus says, no one, I am no one. But when he
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says no one, it means no one, I am nobody, but it also means I am wit because the word is metis.
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So Odysseus is saying two things at the same time. He's saying, I am no one and I am wit. And that is
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another example of that kind of resourcefulness. In this case, it's a kind of cruel resourcefulness,
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but you know, his life was at stake and that of his, his soldiers. Um, but you know, when he says,
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I am wit, he's saying, I am this, I am this person of many turns and I've just turned, turned the
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tables on you cyclops by blinding you so that we could all escape. So I think that's a really fun
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way for Homer to communicate this idea of metis in, in action through, through, uh, Odysseus's
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story. Yeah. And so for the, the story goes on when the cyclops starts yelling out, Oh, no one is
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hurting me. And all the other cyclops are like, then why are you yelling? What's the problem?
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Yeah. This is very, very clever. He's got them coming and going there, Odysseus.
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We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.
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And now back to the show. Well, so let's talk about different forms of wit. And so we can explore
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these ideas of improvisation. You start off talking about puns being a form of wit, but for a lot of
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folks like puns are like the lowest, like eye rolling form of humor, but you think that's an
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unfair characterization. Yes. Why do you think that is? Um, yeah, because I, first of all, I, I've never
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understood why puns are so reviled, you know, that, um, and of course, when you make a pun,
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what's the first thing you say? No, sorry, no pun intended. And I don't think puns are anything that
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we should apologize for it because I do think they are in, in, in many ways they're, they're the most
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pedestrian as well as the most profound example of wit in daily life. And they're pedestrian because
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everybody, you know, makes puns, everybody gets puns, but they're profound because I think they
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touch on the real essence of wit. And that is making these novel, surprising, instantaneous
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combinations between things or among things that on the surface are not alike and are not similar in
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any way. And so I think it's a, and I think that kind of wit, the sort of recombinatory aspect of wit
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is the essence of human creativity really, because I think creativity is taking what you know and
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combining what you know in ways that create, that create new things or create things that you don't
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know. And so the pun that we just been discussing on Metis, I think is a great example of that.
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Odysseus is, is he's both, he's doing so many things in that pun. He's confusing and overcoming an,
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an adversary, but he's also making a very profound statement about what wit is and, and how it works
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and why we need it. In fact, that's, that's the subhead, the subtitle of my book. And I think that,
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that one pun really sums it up. And I think what's also interesting about puns is that the person who
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makes a pun and the person who gets the pun or receives the pun are really performing exactly the
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same kind of creative work. They're making exactly the same creative connections. It's just that
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the person who makes the pun is kind of making that connection in one direction. And the person who
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receives the pun is making the connection in the other direction. There was a great example. I did a
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talk a while back in, in Washington in DC. And as part of the talk that I do about, about my book,
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I have a pun competition towards the end of the talk. And I asked for volunteers from,
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from the audience. And we, we name a theme like plants or something like that, or modes of
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transportation or body parts. And the volunteers have to make a pun on that theme right away,
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or they sit down. And then the last person standing and the last person punning wins a free copy of my
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book. So if the subject were body parts, for example, you could say something like eyebrows,
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the web, when I look for information, eyebrow, it's a pun on a body part. So, so as part of that,
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the pun competition, I also ask the audience to shout out themes that they might want to have the
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volunteers pun on. And of course this was in DC. So someone shouted out the wall and that no one
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could come up with a pun on that right away, but a woman in the back of the back of the room shouted
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out, don't take offense. And I think that's a great example of how puns can be profound because
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it's a pun, offense and a fence, but it's also kind of making a political social statement about the
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whole idea of the wall and the purpose of the wall and how the wall has become one of the many things
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that people are become so polarized around. So I think that's why not all puns are of that high
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level, but I think that's all puns, even the worst puns really speak to this essential creative aspect
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of the human mind to create surprising, novel, and really fertile creatively and intellectually
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fertile combinations. So when my kids start making pun jokes, I should encourage that.
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Right. And it seems like that's like one of the first forms of humor, like that they develop,
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like they start seeing how language can be used in different ways and mean this, you say one word,
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Yeah. And I think that's like, I remember when our oldest child, the one who went to drama school,
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he was two and, you know, he was just learning to talk. And I remember I was with him and he was
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standing on the dresser. I was probably just getting him dressed or something like that. And he was
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looking out the window and pointed up into the sky to the sun. And he said, big sky lamp.
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And that's a beautiful metaphor for the sun. And that's the way kids learn. So when your kids are
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punning, they are in their mind connecting something they don't know with something that
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they do know. And that's the way we learn. That's the way human beings learn from childhood on up to
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adulthood. And that's also the essence of metaphor. And so my son, here's another pun,
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my son and talking about the sun was comparing it to a lamp, which was something that he knew
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and trying to understand what the sun was by comparing it to a lamp. And that's where he came
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up with big sky lamp. One chapter that I really enjoyed was where you had these two guys talking
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about wit, but like as a fencing lesson, like fencing with swords. What can fencing teach us about
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the art and nature of wit? Yeah. If you think of some of the phrases that we use to describe
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wit, cutting wit, a cutting remark, here's someone's like a witty person has a foil, which is
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someone who's not as witty, who they use for the, you know, to bounce their jokes off of.
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There's also the word in English, riposte, which is actually a French word. And it's taken from
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fencing and it means your reply to an attack. The same is true for the word parry. When someone
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attacks you and you kind of repel that attack, that's called a parry. And all those words are
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used when we talk about wit, you know, I parried his criticism. Well, he insulted me, but I had a
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really great riposte. And those are actual fencing terms. And I noticed that. And then I just started
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investigating fencing. And it actually is part of my research for the, for the book. I took fencing
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lessons. And what I realized is that fencing is, is a very, it's a sport that involves incredible
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precision and it's a very highly choreographed sport. And it happens like so fast. You can't even,
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you know, like I would watch fencing competition. I wouldn't even, wouldn't even be able to see what
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they were actually doing. And I think that's in so many ways analogous to the more combative forms
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of wit, which is, you know, like classic example would be Groucho Marx. You know, there's a sort
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of edge, another kind of fencing term. He has a sharpness and an edge to his, his one-liners that
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I think is, is very, very similar to fencing. And when you're arguing with someone, you're,
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you're pitting your wits against someone else. It's very much like fencing because a lot of the,
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the art of fencing is, is in footwork. It's in kind of preparing the ground before you
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strike. And I think that's true for wit as well. If you take the Socratic method of argument or
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teaching where you have two people going back and forth in a, in a dialogue, trying to convince each
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other of a point of view, that's very much like fencing just as two fencers are kind of arranging
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their footwork and dancing around trying to get their opponent in a position that makes them
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vulnerable to attack. That's what happens in, in witty repartee and, and, uh, witty banter and
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witty argument. You're trying to kind of say things and position yourself verbally so that you can land
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that strike with your, with your sword or with your sharp edged words. So I think understanding
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fencing really helped me understand that, that particular form of verbal wit, which is kind of
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more combative and, and more insulting than, than other kinds of verbal wit.
00:25:04.960
Well, a more modern or recent iteration of that combative wit is like the dozens you talk about
00:25:09.980
where it takes part in predominantly African-American communities where typically it's men. They'll get
00:25:15.760
and have these competitions where they, they're sort of like rap battles, but like, I mean, that rap
00:25:20.100
battles is another example of wit on display, but the, the dozens is where you just do insults at each
00:25:25.600
other back and forth and whoever can do the best insult wins. Yeah. And I think rap battles can,
00:25:31.600
you know, they, they really do come from that, uh, history of the dozens. Like in researching the
00:25:36.800
dozens, it's so fascinating and there's such great lines. Like when I remember, um, the whole point of
00:25:44.340
the dozens is you're insulting, you know, your opponent and you want to insult him or her in such
00:25:50.020
an expert way that they kind of concede and, and, and, and quit. And one of the lines was like,
00:25:55.980
you know, you're so dumb. You think the Supreme court is where Diana Ross plays tennis.
00:26:02.020
I just think that that's such a brilliant, it's like really insulting, but it's, it's done in such
00:26:07.340
a funny way and it's done in such an elegant way as, as well. And I think that's again, also analogous
00:26:14.460
to fencing, you know, fencing is actually a, like a really violent sport, but it's, it's done in this
00:26:21.220
beautiful, almost ballet-like choreographed way that the way that those moves are presented is just
00:26:28.980
beautiful to, to watch. And I think the same is true, is true in the dozens and, and those, and
00:26:34.680
actually the dozens all around the world, there are these forms of verbal combat that people indulge
00:26:40.700
into, you know, just as kind of entertainment. It's, it's not, it doesn't lead to violence or
00:26:44.880
anything like that. It's more just like a way to pass the time, but the rap, you know, rap battles
00:26:51.340
today are very much coming from that tradition of, of the dozens. And one of the reasons that I
00:26:57.580
wrote one chapter as a, as a rap song is I think, you know, rap is such really like the height of witty
00:27:05.360
expression in, in, in popular culture. And, you know, just, you know, some of the, the lyrics of
00:27:13.360
rap songs, I'm thinking of people like J Cole or Kendrick Lamar. I think they're just such exquisite
00:27:19.700
use of language and making, you know, social, political critique through a very elegant, but at times
00:27:27.840
really, really cutting use of, of witty language. And I tried to emulate that in, in the, in the chapter
00:27:34.980
that I wrote in the style of a rap song. Well, another way music can be cutting, you talk about
00:27:40.320
this too, sort of a forerunner to rap battles or the dozens was in the, during the jazz age where
00:27:46.520
piano players would have these cutting sessions where basically they would have these improvisation
00:27:52.660
competitions where one guy would play a tune and then you pass it off the next guy and who could do
00:27:57.560
the best improvisation on the piano and they pass it back and forth. And you, you wanted to see who
00:28:02.060
could be the wittiest piano player. Yeah. And that's, that's like, um, uh, and you, that still
00:28:07.880
exists. You know, if you go to a jazz gig today, that still exists in the, in the tradition of
00:28:13.280
trading solos, you know, the, you know, the, the band starts playing all together, then the sax
00:28:18.560
takes a solo and then the pianist or the double bass player or the drummer, and they each kind of
00:28:24.660
take a turn. And it's, that comes back to, you know, Odysseus and, you know, the, the person of
00:28:31.020
many turns, what's happening in jazz improvisation is that they're taking that musical phrase.
00:28:36.120
And as you say, you know, part of that improvisational passages are just trying to
00:28:42.280
see how many different ways they can turn that musical phrase and make it something different
00:28:46.660
and build on what the previous player was playing. And that's a great, that, that aspect of
00:28:53.380
improvisation, when you're taking something and building on it in the moment spontaneously,
00:28:57.640
that's a key aspect of, of, of wit. And in the, in the chapter on the neuroscience of wit that I
00:29:04.500
mentioned earlier, they've done studies, they've put jazz musicians and rappers in MRI machines and
00:29:12.460
scan their brains while they are improvising and compare that to their brains while they're kind of
00:29:19.640
playing something from memory or playing, uh, reciting pre-written lyrics rather than improvising
00:29:25.240
them off the dome. And there's different areas of your brain that are active when you're improvising
00:29:32.120
and creating things spontaneously, as opposed to when you're, you know, reciting something from memory
00:29:38.400
or reading something from, from a page. And that area of the brain that's active when you're
00:29:44.600
improvising and making things up on the spot, that's a crucial area of the brain for wit, because that
00:29:52.200
is the, that is the area of the brain that's active when you're trying to solve a problem with few
00:29:58.040
resources or you're engaged in, you know, the dozens and you need to have a, a, a smart witty
00:30:05.080
comeback to someone. So it's interesting to see how all the kind of human activities, human create,
00:30:11.480
creative activities that have to do with spontaneously generating ideas. They're all involved in this,
00:30:18.680
in this one brain network. So an aspect of wit is there has to be another person to understand the
00:30:26.420
witty remark, right? If you, if you say something witty and no one gets it, like, are you actually
00:30:32.120
being witty? That's a very relevant question for me because I often say something that I think is funny
00:30:39.300
and nobody gets it. You're right. I think, you know, we, we, we say it's a private joke. You know,
00:30:45.240
you can have private jokes and you can laugh to yourself, laugh inwardly, but I do think wit
00:30:50.960
needs witnesses. And in fact, witness is actually from that same Sanskrit verb, vid, to see, and it's
00:30:58.900
related to wit and wisdom. And I think the, so, you know, it's like the famous question, if a tree
00:31:06.140
falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a noise? And I think in the case of wit,
00:31:11.160
it probably does not make a noise because wit does require wit, like a, like we were discussing
00:31:18.780
about puns. You can make a pun, but a pun, it doesn't, it doesn't come into its, its fullness
00:31:25.540
of being unless someone deciphers it, someone, unless someone gets it. And that requires another
00:31:31.000
person. And what I think is so interesting about wit is it, it is a collaboration between
00:31:37.520
two people to create the wit or to, to complete the wit. And if you think about jokes, you know,
00:31:46.300
you've got a joke and it's got different parts and you've got the, you know, the setup and you've
00:31:51.000
got the punchline. But the punchline is never explicitly explained, you know, if it is, it's
00:31:59.200
then a, it's, it's, it's a terrible joke. And, you know, we say a person, you get it, you get the
00:32:05.080
punchline. And I think that's a well-chosen verb because it does require the, the, the hearer to
00:32:10.720
kind of go out and meet the teller of the joke halfway. And in many ways, the, like we're talking
00:32:17.980
about, about puns, the person who hears a joke is doing exactly the same creative work as the
00:32:23.500
person who's telling the joke. And the joke does not exist until it's completed, completed in the
00:32:28.820
mind of the, of the listener. When the, you know, the listener goes out and gets it. And I think
00:32:34.500
that's why what's so special about wit is it does create this kind of bond. It creates this kind of
00:32:39.560
intimacy because you are kind of working with someone else's mind in that moment to create the,
00:32:47.500
the wit that, that, that happens. And I think you see that, you know, like why does every,
00:32:53.240
almost every public speaker begin a speech by telling a joke? And I think it's because a joke,
00:33:00.020
a witty joke, a witty remark, some kind of self-deprecating humor creates that kind of bond
00:33:05.240
because you're, you're inviting your audience to complete this journey with you. And that when,
00:33:13.160
when you complete that journey, it creates this kind of almost a, in a, in a positive sense,
00:33:17.740
it's like a, you're co-conspirators, you're, you're working together to achieve this goal,
00:33:22.580
which is wit. And I think that's why it's essential that wit is a kind of, it's a collective
00:33:28.340
experience. It takes at least two people for, for something to be witty.
00:33:32.460
Yeah. I think you wrote at one point in the book, it said the perfect witty expression
00:33:36.600
can include so much or like mean so much because it leaves so much out. So like by leaving a lot
00:33:42.560
out, you force the other person to construct it in their head, which allows them to get more meaning
00:33:48.720
Yeah, that's exactly it. And there's a great Polish aphorist, Stanislav Letz. In my opinion,
00:33:56.340
he's perhaps the greatest aphorist of all time. And one of his sayings is no snowflake in an avalanche
00:34:04.240
ever feels responsible. And if you think about that, if you think about that literally, it makes
00:34:11.480
absolutely no sense. And, and there's no kind of literal clue in the literal meaning of any of those
00:34:18.460
words as to what the actual meaning of the saying is, but the actual meaning, like you were just
00:34:23.480
saying, it has to be completed by the listener and let's in, in writing that he leaves out all the
00:34:31.060
most important bits. You know, what the saying is really about is group think and how people in a
00:34:36.580
group, it's easier for people to be, to go along with decisions that they might otherwise resist if
00:34:42.300
everybody in the else in the group is going along with it. And he was writing, he lived in Poland,
00:34:48.460
during, you know, the time of the Soviet Union. So he was writing about authoritarianism and
00:34:53.720
political oppression and group thinking in that context. But the way he leaves so much, he leaves
00:35:01.060
all of that out of the story. And it's the listener who has to provide that. And that's a great example of
00:35:09.280
the kind of collaboration and co-creation that's involved in, in any kind of witty remark or witty
00:35:16.980
experience. What do you think the state of wit is today? Because I think oftentimes people think
00:35:22.280
of like witty people, it's always from the past. And I imagine that's because like the really,
00:35:26.820
really witty remarks, like we just, they stand the test of time. But what do you think wit is? Is wit
00:35:35.340
You know, I think there's, there's, I don't think wit's like, I think wit is always, I don't think wit
00:35:44.100
can kind of, it's not like the stock market, it can go up and down. I think it's a fundamental way
00:35:49.700
that the human brain works. And so it's always there. But I think in certain eras or certain periods of
00:35:59.000
time, people think that way more or think that way less. So if, I don't know, if you're looking at
00:36:05.680
late night comedy, for example, then there's plenty of wit around. But if you take a look at
00:36:10.440
a broader look and understand wit, like, like I've tried to understand it in the book as not just about
00:36:17.500
being funny, but as a way of thinking and as a way of solving problems and a way of making connections,
00:36:22.520
because I think wit is more about making connections than it is just simply about making
00:36:27.920
jokes, then I think it would be pretty easy to conclude that we're living in a kind of witless age,
00:36:33.500
sadly, because if you look at our political and social debates, how polarized and partisan they have
00:36:41.580
become, that is by definition, rejecting the kind of collaboration and cooperation that's required
00:36:48.540
for wit to take place. You know, you have to listen, and you have to respond. You don't have to agree
00:36:55.980
by any means. But wit can only happen if people are in relationship, and they're listening to and
00:37:02.920
responding to one another in a kind of genuine, sincere, constructive way. And when it comes to
00:37:08.900
making connections, if you look at any of our biggest challenges as a society, as a planet today,
00:37:17.600
they are all interconnected, they're all multidisciplinary. And I think witty thinking
00:37:23.260
is the ability to make connections among all these different fields, and also to listen to
00:37:30.640
diverging points of view. And again, not necessarily to accept or agree with them, but to listen and then
00:37:36.580
try and come to a synthesis that that brings all those things together. That would be for me, like,
00:37:42.400
a really encouraging and hopeful sign of us as a society living by our wits.
00:37:49.060
What can people do to start being more witty? Is it just making, telling more dad jokes,
00:37:53.560
being more punny? I mean, is that the start? Is that the, I mean, what do you think?
00:37:57.700
I think, well, I think it's, I think, you know, part of being witty is being curious and noticing
00:38:05.800
things and being alert to things. And that, that has to do with a kind of open, I think a witty state
00:38:12.300
of mind is an open state of mind. You're, and that's, again, you know, you mentioned your kids
00:38:16.940
earlier. That's what children, you know, children are open to all these things and they don't kind
00:38:22.100
of prejudge anything. So I think having that kind of open, curious, childlike mind in that sense
00:38:29.820
is absolutely essential. And I think that's another trend that we see today is, you know,
00:38:35.160
people being very focused on a single discipline, whether you're an academic or professional,
00:38:41.860
you know, this is my, my field and, and I, I know everything about my field, but I don't know that
00:38:48.080
much about anything outside my field. And then it's, it sounds kind of flippant and maybe trivial,
00:38:54.460
but I do think, you know, like you said, making puns is a really good way to train your, your brain to
00:39:01.740
be, to be more witty and, you know, having like the simple pun competition with yourself or with
00:39:07.720
your family or with your friends, it's really fun, but it also, you know, the way, the way the human
00:39:13.660
brain works and the way it incorporates new experiences and new knowledge is by making different
00:39:19.080
connections. You know, the synapses in our brain, whenever we, you know, travel to a new
00:39:24.360
place or meet a new person or learn something new, new connections are formed in our brain.
00:39:29.880
Our brain actually physically changes to incorporate this new knowledge and this, this new information.
00:39:35.140
And when you're that, that's scientists called brain plasticity. And it's just basically means
00:39:42.440
the brain's ability to react spontaneously to new information and to respond and to, to learn and to
00:39:48.780
grow. And like I said, it may sound a little trivial or, or silly, but making puns, actually,
00:39:56.100
that's what you're doing in your brain. It's, you know, when you hear a good pun or you hear a good
00:40:00.960
joke, it's uplifting, you know, it really kind of perks you up. It makes you more alert. And this is
00:40:07.440
also has to do with brain chemistry and, you know, the neurochemicals that are released when we laugh
00:40:13.120
or, or take in new information that has a really positive effect on our, our brain chemistry and
00:40:20.280
our ability of our minds to keep making those connections as, as we age. So yes, I would, I would
00:40:27.240
urge everyone to make puns, um, make jokes and let your, let your, you know, let your mind wander
00:40:35.740
into those areas where you're, you can feel free to make new connections and new combinations.
00:40:40.500
Well, James, is there some place people can go to learn more about the book and your work?
00:40:44.740
Yeah, absolutely. The book is available online, Amazon, or if you want to help out your local
00:40:50.460
bookstore, IndieBound is a great, um, a great way to connect with local independent book,
00:40:55.620
booksellers online. And if people are interested in learning more about my other books or other
00:41:01.680
stuff that I do, they can check out my website, which is jamesgeary.com.
00:41:05.460
Well, James Geary, thanks so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:41:09.000
My guest today was James Geary. He's the author of the book Wits End. It's available on amazon.com
00:41:13.980
and bookstores everywhere. You can also find out more information about James's work at his
00:41:17.400
website, jamesgeary.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash wit where you can find links
00:41:22.800
to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:41:25.160
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website,
00:41:36.240
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