Unquenchable Laughter

Years back I was rummaging through my grandparent’s things, minding my own business, when I stumbled upon some books by Robert Fulghum, the author of the now famous essay, “All I really needed to know I learned in Kindergarten.” I began reading one of his other books called, “Uh Oh,” and was immediately struck by an essay about what the Greeks called, “asbestos gelos,” unquenchable laughter. It has been with me ever since, and today I went back and reread these words of wisdom. Here is an excerpt;

“To get through this life and see it realistically poses a problem. There is a dark, evil, hopeless side to life that includes suffering, death, and ultimate oblivion as our earth falls into a dying sun. Nothing really matters.

On the other hand, the best side of our humanity finds us determined to make life as meaningful as possible NOW; to defy our fate. Everything matters. Everything.

It is easy to become immobilized between these two points of view - to see them both so clearly that one cannot decide what to be or do.

Laughter is what gives me forward motion at such intersections. We are the only creatures that both laugh and weep. I think it's because we are the only creatures that see the difference between the way things are and the way they might be. Tears bring relief. Laughter brings release. Some years ago I came across a phrase in Greek - asbestos gelos - unquenchable laughter. I traced it to Homer's Iliad, where it was used to describe the laughter of the gods. That's my kind of laughter. And he who laughs, lasts.”

I was struck by this idea that choosing laughter may represent a kind of mindful living that represented a choice in the way we saw the world. Years later as I reflect on all the places I’ve been and all of the people that have come and gone in my life since that time, so many worries and struggles have receded into the distance, and what I am left with is fond memories of the times I have truly celebrated this kind of unstoppable laughter with people along the way.

Yet even as I say this, worries creep back into my mind. I forget that anxiety is a temporary virus that burrows into our sense of peace, reminding us of all the things that might go wrong. Most of the time these things never happen, but meanwhile we waste a tremendous amount of energy putting out these little fires in our minds.

So what is the antidote? For me I know the answer is laughter. The simple fact is that all of the ways we worry about our problems rarely get us any closer to finding a solution. Here is where we come to a fork in the road. We can worry or we can find a way to reframe our problems in terms of laughter. As Gilda Radner wrote about so eloquently when she was diagnosed with cancer, “it’s always something.” Dark humor to be sure, but also an amazing example of the kind of resilience a life committed to laughter can provide.

How to we learn to find this line between the thousands of little tragedies and comedies in our lives? I certainly haven’t mastered it, but more and more I’ve learned to mentally confront these tragedies with a question. Will this really matter to me in a year? Even a week? Almost always the answer is no. As I retrace my own memory banks, I find that more and more the things I thought I should be worrying about were never the real things. As Mary Schmich says in Everybody’s free to wear sunscreen, “Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.”

I would encourage you to develop your own set of questions when these viruses of the mind attack, so you can find your own way to laugh about the inevitable rain that falls into all of our lives. Try it, try to really challenge these worrisome reminders and see if they really hold up to serious scrutiny. If they do I’d like to gently suggest to you that you are perhaps a bit too invested in the seriousness of your own private universe. In the grander scheme of things, this will certainly pass. It always does. Laughter however is forever. I know this because I’ve been fortunate enough to relive so many wonderful memories of laughing with people throughout my life, and if I had it to do over, I would have had a whole lot more of them. I’m learning. All of us are learning. Let’s listen to each other a little more often rather than listening to the voices in our heads so often. I promise you your reward will be a lighter load to carry.