This book explores a lifetime of encounters with ideas and people as seen through humor-colored glasses. Drawing inspiration from humorist Will Rodgers who told us that all encounters could be instructive: Some are lessons learned by observation, some taught by gurus, and most from missteps like peeing on the electric fence. Many daily encounters are silly, or fun, but increasingly I confront profound and deeply moving experiences that are more about the irony of unexpected contradictions. When confronting these incongruities it seems inappropriate to giggle, but what other option is there but to laugh?