Daily Cascade

Laughter and Me

Prompt:
“Anything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time. I think something like that is very close to immortality.”
Stephen King
Do you laugh at anything that happened in the past? In what ways does laughter help us?

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Just a while ago, I looked in the mirror and laughed at myself. I seem to be doing this quite a lot nowadays, in old age. If,--according to the quote-- "Anything with the power to make you laugh over thirty years later isn’t a waste of time...,"my face may still have some value, after all; hilarious though it may be.

I can't say much about immortality and laughter, but I have noticed that laughter lightens what has changed for the worse and other heavy moments. For sure, a spontaneous giggle or a shared joke can offer a tiny rebellion to life's downs or fear or sadness. Something like a pressure valve...which reminds me of my grandmother's pressure cooker. When that thing screamed, it screamed, although the word for it at the time was "whistled." What whistle! Its sound shook the house.

Not that my laughter shakes my house, but it lets me take an easy breath when life becomes a bit hard to handle. And yes, I do laugh at a lot of things that happened in the past. Sometimes, at all of them.

It is said that laughter encourages a body's stress hormones and feel-good chemicals. Who knew that feeling good had anything to do with anything chemical! But then, it is the big Pharma's vocabulary and influence, which might have seeped into every one of us.

In my opinion, though, the best work of laughter has something to do with connecting people who might otherwise have stayed strangers. Jokes, funny stories, and humorous situations create moments of warmth that can be so humanly. This is because they break down the walls we build to keep ourselves safe; however, instead, they often keep us lonely.

Then, even when we are alone, a funny show or person on TV or the internet or a silly memory can lift a person's mood, like me looking into the mirror, as I mentioned above. This is because joy (and Joy) don't always need a solid reason. It's enough to just let go and laugh at myself or at something absurd.

It is actually exhilarating to laugh at things beyond my control and my own self, and the idea of how in the world I ever thought I could control the whole shebang, lock stock and barrel!

Ultimately, when all is said and done, being me and being alive in itself can be very, very funny.