To paraphrase Alan Watts, don't trust anyone who isn't in on the Great Cosmic Joke :)

This isn't a direct response to you, but moreso to this thread. There are some who are in on the joke and have even found quite a bit of humor in it, but no longer find that humor useful. It's like an old joke which was hilarious and insightful at one point but has been told too many times to remain interesting.

I for one tend to envy those who either don't know or don't care. Being cynical seemed cool and somehow "smarter" for some time, and then eventually it can, for some, seem just as naive.

I'd rather look at life earnestly. Yes, it's all fucked and we've no control over it. Society is a fiction, etc. But I'd rather love my wife, do work I enjoy, and not point out the absurdity all day every day to myself and others, because it's just an old stupid joke to which we _all_ happen to be the punchline.

I've found that I need the humor more when I'm doing less/less well.

When I'm doing/doing well, I don't need the humor as the crushing weight of of existential dread and absurdity is drowned out by my involvement in life.

It doesn't need to be pointed out, sure, but it's useful every day to keep in mind, I think, because it allows you to think about what really matters (as you say, your wife, for example).

It's that kind of 'realistic' mindset that lets you look through a situation in which you're playing a role, and someone else is playing a role, and just be people.

I don't know that it makes me cynical. For me it's more akin to a reminder to not sweat the small stuff too much (and it's pretty much all small stuff).

> Those sorts of people need to exist - society would fall apart if everyone were so freewheeling

Is that really true, or are we just conditioned to think that? Basic sense and decency can still be made explicit.

I tried to comfort a co-worker who was lamenting a low productivity quarter by explaining on a long enough timescale all human productivity will likely be lost. So 90 days isn't really a big deal. She didn't see the humor in my observation.

This kind of black humor is very present in the military (at least the branch I was in). I quickly found that I no longer fit in when I came back to the civilian world.