Apathy immunity

One book I had tremendous fun reading was "Jinx On A Terran Inheritance" by Brian Daley. In one particular scene, the main characters have joined in a funeral wake on another planet as professional mourners, hoping to earn a little money. In describing the misadventure, the author "struck gold," because I cannot read that particular scene without laughing as hard as I did the first time I read it. Other writers have been able to achieve that same sort of intensity with pathos, joy, sorrow, outrage and other emotions, so that those scenes are immune to apathy, even when they are reread and reread.
I don't have that big of a spark. It is almost there sometimes, during the times I am in the writing "zone," but nothing I have written has reached the level of apathy immunity.
What does it take? I even think I know, but it requires a sort of leap out into a nothingness I do not want to explore.
Wait a minute! I am an adventurer, and if I would be true to myself, I have to make that leap.
I choose to be true to myself. I'll see you on the other side...