Why Tragedy and Comedy Are So Alike

A note to young leaders.

It’s no coincidence that laughter and crying sound so eerily alike.

Tragedy and comedy are but two aspects of the human condition. Whether you cry or laugh in any moment is entirely a matter of perspective.

Life is tragedy when seen in close-up, and comedy when seen in long-shot.

To laugh, then, is to see your life in long-shot.

But how do you do that?

Two ways.

The first is to wait. Comedy is tragedy plus time. Time provides distance and perspective. That’s why events that once made us weep in our youth, so often make us laugh in old age.

Yesterday’s catastrophe is tomorrow’s anecdote.

Better still, you can learn to create distance instantly – by stepping outside your own ego, by seeing yourself in the third person. That’s why we find an accident tragic when it happens to us, but funny when it happens to someone else.

There’s more than a morsel of truth to Mel Brooks’ aside: “Tragedy is when I cut my little finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” 😊

We will all one day trip in public, forget our lines, hire the wrong person, say the wrong thing, and pretend to be in control while slipping on the banana peel of life.

Step back. Widen the lens.

The same event that makes you cry can – from three rows back – make you laugh.

And, when it comes to your own follies and misfortunes, it’s better by far to laugh than to cry.