Saturday, September 19, 2009

Only When I Laugh


By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2009 Elliott Joseph

October 2009


As you may know, I have been a writer of humor all my life.

I've laughed, I've giggled, I've laughed so hard I've almost choked. So what was I laughing at?

The loss of jobs? The houses all but gone? The tent cities? The futures shattered? The battles against hopelessness? What was so funny? The rising cost of food? The fraud? The so-called health care debate? The big lies? What passes for music? Afghanistan? Iraq? The shouting of newscasters? The mindless speeding of cars in TV commercials? The lack of common courtesy?
The lack of taste?

Why did I always seem to have such a bellyful of laughs? Was it that I didn't care? Was it that I was ignorant? That I saw how difficult it was to get the right thing done? That I saw today's crazy human behavior as remarkably similar to the experiment I witnessed in a college psychology class -- where the environment of laboratory rats was made to be crazy, resulting in crazy rat behavior?

Or was it simply that I laughed because if I didn't laugh I might go crazy myself?

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1 comment:

Gail said...

Elliott dahlink. I have to send my brainwaves someplace else entirely to keep from weeping all the time at the sad sorry state of things. So I think about what I'll make for dinner, what I should have said, pet the kitties, re-tell myself funny old jokes, try to figure out if that's a new spiderweb on the wall or an old floater in my aging eyeball, and pat myself on the back for bucking up against all odds. As for what you don't know (last month's blog), Paul explained to me why airplanes don't fall from the sky so I now know that - neener neener - and just between you, me, and the missus I think I always did at least a halfway decent job of watering your plants, so THERE!