Laughter Is The Music Of Life

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. e. e. cummings
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. Victor Hugo

LAUGH and the whole world laughs with you, sulk and you sulk alone. Cry and no one will cry with you. Brood and you brood on your own.

It isn’t totally ironic that laughter begets laughter, and melancholy leads to solitude. After all, man is a positively social creature and our natural reaction is to stay away from emotions that bring heaviness and gloom to our lives. And didn’t some sage hammer into our heads, one time or another, that it entails lesser strain on our facial muscles to laugh than it does to frown?

Life’s lessons have invariably taught us that laughter is the best medicine. It is the perfect elixir for pain, emotional and even physical; the sweet tonic for misery that takes away our troubles, if only for the nonce; a welcome relief from the unremitting turmoil of our egoistic tendencies and self-absorbed infirmities.

Albeit temporarily, laughter is the one sensation that most assuredly delivers us from the sheer wretchedness of a single, forgettable moment.

Like love, laughter evens out the folds that perpetually wrinkle the fabric of our tenuous being. It caresses the heart jaded by many labors lost in the name of passion. It strokes, ever so sweetly, the nerves of steel and paroxysms of fury that indomitably litter our consciousness, rising above the torrent of unmitigated hurts and wounded pride.

Like rain, laughter drenches the soul numbed by the turbulent swings and swirls of time and space. It soothes the mind calloused by the twists and turns, wear and tear, hits and misses, that constantly assault the sum total of our fragile reality. It cleanses the body of all the grime shrouding our countenance, the fragments enveloping our visage, the stains that won’t go away, threatening to cloak our veneer with even more filth and even more slime.

Like sunshine, laughter brings cheer to foggy spirits and warmth to cold, unrelenting shoulders. It gets rid of self-imposed burdens, alleviates heavy loads, eases difficult situations, and lightens up crabby dispositions. It drives away the aches and pains of flesh and blood and doddering knees, settles down the throbbing and smarting of muscles and bones and fading joints, and breathes a new ray of optimism to waning, shrinking, dwindling hopes.

All in a fleeting instant, most absolutely, but nevertheless cathartic and thoroughly exhilarating. Beats staring at clouds in one’s coffee all day, or wallowing in emotional self-flagellation time and time again.

Except that, does one know laughter if one hasn’t known tears? In the same breath, is happiness possible without the specter of loneliness looming from a distance? Can love exist without hatred? Would there be peace without war? Is heaven true without hell?

Laughing beneath the tears; shedding tears of joy; laughing on the outside, crying on the inside – isn’t it the most mystifying of paradoxes? How can two disparate feelings be present in one incongruous burst of time? Yet the sentiment is as real as the lachrymal flow that goes with the lilting, pulsating sound of mirth; or the obligatory twitching of the mouth to form a smile that masks the soreness seething within.

Laughing one’s guts out – with nary an inhibition, with nary a care – can be a completely emancipating experience; like purging the spirit of hidden guilt or freeing the mind of agonizing thoughts. For it is in having wept with all our heart that we are able to laugh with all our soul. It is the laughter of pure happiness, perfect bliss; like soaring to heights unknown, exploring fresh frontiers, discovering new horizons.

When was it that we last shared a hearty laugh with someone? A loud, raucous reckless fit of laughter it was almost scandalous, practically uncontrollable, downright unstoppable. Do we remember how invigorating it felt? How undeniably loose and lighthearted we seemed? Like being unhinged from chains that bound us for so long, or being released from a dark prison that we locked ourselves into.

When did we last hear ourselves laugh like a child? A nervous giggle here, a gleeful chortle there. Clear but not biting, unknowing but not hurting. With a dash of innocence that stirs up memories of the good old simple, uncomplicated times. Like unleashing a deluge that’s been lingering in the chest for ages, or jumping up and down, dancing up a storm, not feeling the least bit guilty, only unbelievably happy.

Indeed, we should not forget to laugh – at ourselves, at anything or everything, at the mistakes we’ve made, the mess we’ve created, the holes we’ve dug for ourselves during our thorniest periods and sorriest states, at our own foibles, our own frailties, our own flaws and moral weaknesses. And even as we go through difficult situations over and over, even as we travel through dark tunnels and lonely highways, the light of the sun, the sighing of the wind and the sound of laughter ringing in our ears will make us overcome.

Laughter is the song that comes from our heart and comforts our soul. And, without a doubt, the sound of our own laughter is the most beautiful sound of all.