A Plum Reflection on the Wonderful Gift of Being Surrounded by Funny People
Plum has never quite understood professional comedians.
Not that there aren’t talented ones. There certainly are. But consider the peculiar tragedy of their profession.
A musician can write a beautiful song and perform it ten thousand times. People will happily listen to it ten thousand times. In fact, the more they love it, the more they want to hear it again.
A comedian tells a brilliant joke. Everyone laughs. And now the joke is dead.
The poor bastard has to write another one.
Imagine if the Beatles had performed Hey Jude once, everyone applauded, and Paul McCartney was told, “Very good, Paul. Now never do that again.”
What a ridiculous profession.
And the tragedy gets worse. Eventually, professional comedians have to travel around the world performing rehearsed observations about airline food, marriage, politics, and the absurdities of everyday life, pretending they just thought of them.
Plum would rather spend an evening with his friends.
The Newfoundland Advantage
Growing up and living in Newfoundland has given Plum an extraordinary appreciation for humour.
Not because Newfoundlanders are constantly telling jokes. Quite the opposite.
The funniest people Plum knows aren’t trying to be funny.
They are simply being themselves.
Someone makes an observation. Somebody else adds an outrageous interpretation. A third person delivers a perfectly timed remark that nobody saw coming.
And suddenly the entire room is helpless with laughter.
Nobody bought a ticket. Nobody rehearsed a routine. Nobody needed a microphone, a spotlight, or a Netflix special.
And nobody is thinking about their career. They’re just having a wonderful time together.
There is something especially beautiful about Newfoundland humour. It is woven into ordinary conversation. The exaggerations, the storytelling, the affectionate insults, the perfectly placed bit of nonsense. Even the delivery of an otherwise unremarkable sentence can be hilarious.
A Newfoundlander can sometimes make you laugh simply by describing what happened at the grocery store.
And the best part? The storyteller may have absolutely no idea why everyone is laughing.
Real Humour Is a Relationship
Plum suspects that the deepest form of humour isn’t really about jokes at all. It’s about people.
It’s about knowing someone so well that a raised eyebrow can send you into hysterics.
It’s about shared history. A ridiculous incident from twenty years ago can still make everyone laugh because they all remember what happened.
It’s about the freedom to be ridiculous without embarrassment. And it’s about affection.
When people genuinely enjoy one another, humour becomes almost inevitable. They play with words, expectations, personalities, and the glorious absurdity of being human.
A professional comedian must persuade an audience to laugh.
Friends don’t need persuading. They already share the world in which the humour exists.
That’s a remarkable difference.
The Joke That Never Gets Old
There is another advantage to humour among friends.
Unlike the comedian’s carefully crafted punchline, the funny stories of friendship can become funnier with repetition.
Everyone knows the story. Everyone knows what’s coming. And somehow, everyone is laughing before the storyteller even gets to the good part.
The laughter isn’t just about what happened. It’s about remembering who was there, what they said, and how much fun they had together.
In that sense, friendship actually gives humour something that comedians envy. An encore.
Laughter Is One of Life’s Great Treasures
Plum isn’t suggesting that professional comedy is worthless. A gifted performer can bring joy to millions of strangers. That’s a fine achievement.
But there is something rather sad about imagining that humour is principally a product we must purchase from professional entertainers.
It isn’t. Humour is everywhere.
It’s in the kitchen when the family gathers. It’s in the workplace when someone says something gloriously stupid. It’s in the stories friends tell over supper. It’s in the astonishing ability of human beings to turn life’s frustrations into something hilarious.
And it’s free.
Plum considers himself extraordinarily fortunate to live among people who make him laugh. Not because they are entertainers. Because they are funny, affectionate, ridiculous human beings.
And perhaps that is one of the simplest lessons of Vitalogy.
A good life isn’t one in which you have access to the world’s finest entertainment.
It’s one in which the people around you are more entertaining than anything you could buy.
So here’s to the comedians who never take the stage.
The friends, the family, the neighbours, the characters, and the magnificent fools who make ordinary life so bloody funny.
They don’t need a Netflix special. They’ve already got the best audience in the world.
Each other.
— Captain Plum
Lifeology | The Great Work
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