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Laughter & Tears

I just checked out the New York Times website to see what was up in the big wide world today. Ouch. Slowdowns, recessions, markets in turmoil, global violence, job layoffs…you get the picture. Oh one piece of great news: Exxon posted a record 58% jump in profits. Thank god somebody is doing well out there.

No I’m not the cynical type. I was in my early youth. 18 years old and smelling bullshit a mile away. Distrusting of the status quo I sought the alternative path, mostly out of reaction (as opposed to real conviction). I fought against authority, bridled against convention, and found solace in the writings of Hesse and Camus and Kesey and Chuang Tzu and Dee Brown and The Beats. I slept on the ground a lot, hitch hiked across the country numerous times, and relied on the kindness of others more than not. I saw the world back then as an adversary and not a worthy one either. I felt like the things that were “wrong” with society (or civilization for that matter) were inherited. I had no say in how they came to be – war, poverty, recession (depression), hunger, inflation, unemployment – all that suffering right? I was not remotely responsible for the world in which I found myself living in. Right?

Or was I? Or am I?

Today I left a voicemail for a sub-contractor friend of mine disguising my voice in a heavy eastern European accent. It’s kind of a running joke we have where I pretend to be this client trying to track him down. As usual I got his voicemail. In the middle of saying something very funny (and very unprintable) I lost it. I started laughing so hard my eyes welled up with tears and I had to hang up the phone. You know the feeling you get when that happens? It is most definitely a feeling of expansion. Just the physical act of laughing is a release. After I hung up the phone I leaned back in my chair and felt even better than I had before I made the call.

So what if we are the world? What if the inner state of being is what drives the outer reflection? What if in the face of collapse we can summon the courage to laugh? What if the drama the world is churning out is only as powerful and impactful as we make it? What if we just laughed in the face of it?

What if we could access that place in all human beings where humor lives? Where lightness exists? Even if it’s just for a moment, in the middle of the day, in the middle of being in fear about your job, or your mortgage, or your portfolio, or your children. What if we all started laughing again? What would happen if the laughter turned to tears turned to laughter again?

Would we affect ourselves in a good way? Would we affect the world? Maybe then our interactions with our neighbor, or co-worker or loved ones might reflect that lightness of being. Maybe the whole globe sets aside its collective drama and starts laughing.

Because to me the funniest joke is that none of us are getting out of this alive.

So what then? Do we take ourselves so seriously with that fact in mind? I know I don’t.

So the next time your feeling tweaked make a prank call to a friend, or watch your favorite comedy, or do whatever it takes to help you feel like it’s just laughter & tears.

J

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