Giving

The season for giving has just finished. Or rather the commercial world wants you to think that. Christmas is, in one way, the season for giving, but that’s for another post. While most of us might only give presents to one another during Christmas (and obviously, during birthdays), whenever we have social interactions, we are giving, in one way or another.

We give our opinions to others, whether solicited or otherwise, when we interact socially. We give advice, views, directions, hints, encouragement, information and other assorted information when we interact.

However, when we interact, we interact not only through our words, but also through our actions. Body language, face gestures, hand movements and even eye movements also signal our pleasure or displeasure. But let’s not get too caught up with direct, verbal communication and its associated actions.

I’m talking about communication via actions. There is an old saying, going something like “actions speak louder than words”. Well, tell that to anyone who has to pass a message without saying a word.

When university students get together and are bored, i.e. when they are at a Christian Fellowship meeting, they come up with all sorts of games. One game in particular, which was apparently a hit during the CF camp last year, was one involving passing messages from one person to another without saying a single word.

Some of you have probably played it before. However, for those of you who are unenlightened, I’ll enlighten you now. The person at the head of a row is given a message which he or she is to pass down to the next person. The catch is he (or she) can’t use words.

The poor soul must act out the message for the next person to copy and pass on. While the message passing is taking place, everyone else who is not involved has to turn and look in the opposite direction.

At the end of the row, the person must guess the initial content of the message.

Needless to say, this is a lot harder than the traditional version of passing the message. While in the traditional version, all one has to do is listen and talk, in this version, one has to watch another act out the message, interpret it correctly, and act out the message to another.

Kind of a hard message to give another person, don’t you think so?

As if that isn’t hard enough, some people (Girls, actually. No, I’m not being sexist. I’m just saying that there’s no cross dressing) wear clothing which does not help them, particularly in this case. It is not that the clothing is indecent, it’s just that the clothing hinders their ability to perform maximally in this case.

I’ll highlight one example for explanation.

One fine day, the CF saw it fit to play this game, as a penalty for people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. After one round (and after everyone else having a good laugh at their attics), a call went out to the crowd to volunteer for the game.
As you might expect, yours truly did not volunteer for the game, for had no intention of being so publicly and voluntarily laughed at. The time will come (indeed, the time has already come), but as for that time, I had no intention of making a fool of myself.

So the group of volunteers assembled together. After the first person was given a message, it was passed on to the next person, and the one after that.

Then it hit a snag.

As she was wearing a skirt, it wasn’t exactly easy for her to mimic the actions of the two people in front of her in the line. So she performed a few extra actions to get the action right.

At which point the whole message was lost in translation, and everyone (including those who had already acted out, excluding those who had yet to act out), was laughing their heads off.

After the message was given to the last person, and a hint given to him (Movie), he proceeded to give a guess way off tangent. Then the initial act was shown, at which point the whole CF understood immediately what all the machine-like movement was all about.

Moral of the story: If you‘re a girl, never wear a skirt to CF. You might be asked to do certain things or give certain bits of information, and wearing a skirt is at the very least, a hindrance; at most, an epic disadvantage.

If you’re a guy, you better not wear a skirt if you plan to go to CF. Otherwise, the whole CF will start praying for you earnestly when you walk in.

Seriously though, the focus is not on what you wear to CF (though I am serious about the guy part). Just before the volunteers started their “tour of duty”, a number of senior changed their positions from the back of the room to the middle of the room.

As they went by, I could hear them say what they wanted to do, or rather, see.

“I don’t want to act. I only want to laugh.”

While it is natural that all of us want to have a good laugh at someone, this got me thinking. While all of us want a good laugh, what about the poor sods who have to go out and give us something to laugh at? They, too, need a good laugh.

Just as they give us a good laugh, we too need to return the favour, specifically, there are probably times when we should go out, volunteer for a stupid stunt and spread the laughter around.

Not everyone enjoys being comic relief for the whole group. Some people enjoy being the “life” of the party, and are just sporting that way. Others, don’t mind being laughed at, and just laugh along. Still other, however, might not mind being the target for long, but it doesn’t come naturally to them, and they need a good laugh from someone else

I think it is unfair that the same people do all the laughing, and that another group of people do all the laughing at. While it would reflect poorly on everyone if a schedule was drawn up for who to be laughed at and when, it should occur to everyone that there will come a time when one would need to go up and do something funny, for the needs of the many.

Besides, we’re all going to be laughed at in a more serious environment (the workplace) soon. If we’re going to learn to take it in stride, what better place than where we give others laughter freely?

After all, “actions speak louder than words”. And giving is always “better” than receiving. If we learn to take it in stride, what better place than where we give others laughter freely?

After all, “actions speak louder than words”. And giving is always “better” than receiving. If we learn to spread humour around, we might learn to receive it better too.