I've always found enjoyment in making jokes, seeing how my peers' faces turn red and their jaws drop as their palms reach out to slap their face from embarrassment. It fills me with satisfaction. Jokes are an amazing way to communicate every feeling I express — sadness, joy, and enthusiasm can all be contained within a joke. Straightforward jokes are interesting to hear, but in my opinion, they tend to become overused. I prefer layering jokes with punchline after punchline; these jokes strike me as more creative.

Jokes also have the added purpose of lightening the mood in an audience — stress, anxiety, and apprehension become replaced by laughter and amusement. I enjoy bringing joy to people and lighting up the dark crevices that breed negativity. I know many friends who have suffered or are currently suffering from depression and anxiety. Having struggled through that myself, I understand how cold and desolate it feels. Introducing comedy eradicates the burden from one's chest by bringing some warmth. Even if the relief is just temporary, I can ease the suffering of others, which in and of itself is incentivizing. I realized that whenever I'm in a pickle, there's always a Rick that has my back.

I've even recently found them to be a useful study material. By formulating jokes that are based on a topic such as biology or chemistry, I assess my own working knowledge of the subject and can better remember it. Through conscious self-assessment, I can make jokes that most people can understand on the surface but pack an additional kick for other people. In fact, this is one of the ways that I can effectively tutor a subject; I make chemistry jokes to convey the material in a way that people better understand.

For example, I may ask you, "Why are young beetles such experts at rearranging alkenes?"

You reply, "Why?"

"It's because they're excellent Grubbs!"

The above exchange is an example of my original jokes (that is quite frankly better said out loud). Young beetles are also known as grubs, but unless you've taken organic chemistry, you won't get the other pun. The additional punchline is based on the fact that the Grubbs catalyst is what initiates a metathesis reaction, which is what restructures alkenes. These puns are exactly what make all my friends cringe, but they do have the side effect of being stuck inside their heads. Thus, when they see an organic reaction that uses the Grubbs catalyst, they remember the joke and thus the subject and can now solve the problem.

I seriously hope you cringed from that joke; I just taught you a tidbit of organic chemistry!