I grew up around rather serious parents, and my instinct is to think – and react – with that side of my brain. But to survive all that seriousness, I needed a buffer zone. Some levity to grant me perspective. Some perspective to recognize that life’s work doesn’t begin and end with what we materially achieve. After all, seriousness and sincerity are vastly different things. With great sincerity and an apt sense of humor, life becomes bearable. Even meaningful.

Check forgers achieve optimal forgeries by taking someone else’s signature, turning it upside-down, and copying it as just a series of impartial loops and lines. This method eliminates the unhappy burden and bias of one’s own handwriting. Every moment in life, turned on its head, has an impartial – and typically funny – side to it. And so, the more we turn things upside-down, the more likely we are to overcome unhappy patterns. To see the loops and lines of life for what they actually are, and not for what we mistake them to be.