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<p>[HOW HUMOR HELPS US THINK]</p><p>The biggest inoculation against our mental problems is a sense of humor. The intensity of the feelings when the movie Jaws came out reached ludicrous levels. There were companies which sold diving equipment and did $30 million one year, then$100,000 the next because people wouldn’t go in the ocean. It didn’t suddenly become more dangerous, it’s just people weren’t taking diving lessons because they saw this movie. Oddly enough, people who weren’t anywhere near the ocean were thinking about it, scaring the crap out of themselves, and not swimming in pools at night.</p><p>People were not going into creeks and reservoirs with no sharks in them, because when they saw water, their adrenaline response to the movie linked water with sharks. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is not just a response to reality, it’s not just that you were in a war zone or a car accident; when people hear about horrific things and see it on the news, they go in and imagine ...