Do you have days when the world seems just a bit too serious for its own good? Don't get me wrong, I'm as serious about the world and life as the next as long as the next guy is Groucho Marx. I get tired of long faces, wrinkled brows, and serious frowns, which are sometimes only too common in my world, but to tell the truth, I have no idea why. Certainly, tragic things happen, such as the death of young person, and these things must be faced seriously, but what about joy, happiness, comedy, silliness, and nonsense? Laughter, a good belly laugh, is often the best relief from this valley of tears in which we are forced to walk. Nonsense, that which makes little sense or a silly sense, is a great remedy for the serious side of life. I believe we are all given a healthy dose of the absurd as a shield against tragedy, crisis, tears, conflict, tense words, and pain. I don't know if other animals laugh, but our sense of humor, often based on nonsense, is our shield against negativity that can make us dour and unpleasant. Going through life with a frown on your face neither helps others nor lengthens your life. Laughter releases endorphins and other happy chemicals that cheer our spirits, lift our souls, and brighten our worlds. If you can't laugh at a joke, if you can't smile when you are happy, if you cannot share your positive outlook in life, then you are sad tribute to the human experiment. All work and no play, does make you a sad piece of humanity. Tragedy may be a natural part of our lives, but if we cannot see any joy in our lives, this is, indeed, a dark journey into the night. Blessed with a sense of nonsense, we wield our shield as a weapon to ward off the ravages of stress, sadness, and conflict, laughing in the face of tragedy and making it to the hope of sunrise and a new day. Nonsense and its accompanying comedy is our armor when things get tough. We joke, laugh, smile, and joke and laugh some more. Laughter is infectious, fills the heart with gladness, chases away the ghosts of the day, conquers giants, and tames dragons, and lights those dark corners of the soul that weigh on us. The light of nonsense and humor and comedy and laughter are subversive and corrosive to authority. The problem with taking yourself too seriously, of believing your own press clippings, of letting your ego get the best of you, will turn you into one of the most seriously obnoxious and friendless people on earth. Keeping a great sense of humor, a highly developed sense of the ridiculous, a profound understanding of nonsense alive within your spirit will serve you well in almost any situation. People derive life from smiles, humor, comedy and will gravitate toward it, but they will also tend to drift away from the over-serious, the complaining, the conflicted, and the negative. Being able to see the nonsensical in life, laughing at the challenges thrown at you, will help you get through it all. Laughter cannot heal a tragedy, but it can help endure it. There is always hope when one does not focus on the critical negativity that has taken over the lives of grumps, curmudgeons, and cranks who can only see the dark side of everything, never have a positive word for anyone, and go around with a permanent frown or scowl on their faces, unable to experience joy, happiness or pleasure. In the end, nonsense is a great reaction to negativity, liberating us from overbearing sadness and subverting a cold, cruel world of grumpiness.
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
On grumps and nonsense
Do you have days when the world seems just a bit too serious for its own good? Don't get me wrong, I'm as serious about the world and life as the next as long as the next guy is Groucho Marx. I get tired of long faces, wrinkled brows, and serious frowns, which are sometimes only too common in my world, but to tell the truth, I have no idea why. Certainly, tragic things happen, such as the death of young person, and these things must be faced seriously, but what about joy, happiness, comedy, silliness, and nonsense? Laughter, a good belly laugh, is often the best relief from this valley of tears in which we are forced to walk. Nonsense, that which makes little sense or a silly sense, is a great remedy for the serious side of life. I believe we are all given a healthy dose of the absurd as a shield against tragedy, crisis, tears, conflict, tense words, and pain. I don't know if other animals laugh, but our sense of humor, often based on nonsense, is our shield against negativity that can make us dour and unpleasant. Going through life with a frown on your face neither helps others nor lengthens your life. Laughter releases endorphins and other happy chemicals that cheer our spirits, lift our souls, and brighten our worlds. If you can't laugh at a joke, if you can't smile when you are happy, if you cannot share your positive outlook in life, then you are sad tribute to the human experiment. All work and no play, does make you a sad piece of humanity. Tragedy may be a natural part of our lives, but if we cannot see any joy in our lives, this is, indeed, a dark journey into the night. Blessed with a sense of nonsense, we wield our shield as a weapon to ward off the ravages of stress, sadness, and conflict, laughing in the face of tragedy and making it to the hope of sunrise and a new day. Nonsense and its accompanying comedy is our armor when things get tough. We joke, laugh, smile, and joke and laugh some more. Laughter is infectious, fills the heart with gladness, chases away the ghosts of the day, conquers giants, and tames dragons, and lights those dark corners of the soul that weigh on us. The light of nonsense and humor and comedy and laughter are subversive and corrosive to authority. The problem with taking yourself too seriously, of believing your own press clippings, of letting your ego get the best of you, will turn you into one of the most seriously obnoxious and friendless people on earth. Keeping a great sense of humor, a highly developed sense of the ridiculous, a profound understanding of nonsense alive within your spirit will serve you well in almost any situation. People derive life from smiles, humor, comedy and will gravitate toward it, but they will also tend to drift away from the over-serious, the complaining, the conflicted, and the negative. Being able to see the nonsensical in life, laughing at the challenges thrown at you, will help you get through it all. Laughter cannot heal a tragedy, but it can help endure it. There is always hope when one does not focus on the critical negativity that has taken over the lives of grumps, curmudgeons, and cranks who can only see the dark side of everything, never have a positive word for anyone, and go around with a permanent frown or scowl on their faces, unable to experience joy, happiness or pleasure. In the end, nonsense is a great reaction to negativity, liberating us from overbearing sadness and subverting a cold, cruel world of grumpiness.
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