“Mate, I’m not here to be f*cken reasonable!”

- Some well-dressed guy at the football.

Being a parochial sports fan is one thing. Objecting to basic facts is another.

The guy next to us was so one-eyed I eventually said something. His response was perfect.

Because in that moment he wasn’t trying to be fair. Or even coherent.

He was being a rabid sports fan, and he was in exactly the right place. In his eyes, I was the unreasonable one. And he had a point!

We get to choose who we are depending on the context.

If we’re grounded in our values, we can match our behaviour to the moment.

You don’t need to be the same person everywhere. You just need to not be a fraud anywhere.

As Walt Whitman put it:

“I contain multitudes.”

PS. The guy at the end commentating on my shithouse plays is Dom Bareford. He’s a decent frisbee player and a LITERAL WORLD CHAMPION HOT AIR BALLOON PILOT.

“Cam, you’re smart enough to always be ‘right’, and I can’t be bothered anymore.”

Oof.

In our twenties, Col stopped talking to me for a few years. Fair enough.

Smart people aren’t less biased. They’re just better at explaining why they’re “right”.

That was me, and I was insufferable.

There’s a poster of fallacies and biases in Col’s toilet, and it prompted some terrible jokes and useful reflection:

If you’re always right, you’re definitely not.

I expressed my exasperation to Col’s 6-year-old son Deakin. His response was so funny it completely dissolved the tension.

Being funny is a great quality. Even if you’re not exactly sure what’s funny or why. In this Fink Tank, Col and I laugh about the nature of humour and why it matters in life and work.

Being stand-up-comedian level funny is beyond most people, for effort and talent reasons. But we think everyone is capable of adding a bit of humour to their repertoire.

Skip to 6:25 for some terrible jokes. Better yet, put your shit go-to jokes in the comments!