Laughter

Laughter (n.) - an expression or appearance of merriment or amusement.

We’ve all been told time and time again that laughter is the best medicine. While I understand and respect this saying, I took the time to really think about it. If you have lung cancer, laughing isn’t going to help. It’s probably just going to make it hurt more. But, this saying does have a nice message.

Laughing is a funny occurrence. Why do we laugh? When something is funny, why do we smile widely and rapidly expel short bursts of air sometimes accompanied by vocal sounds? It seems such a strange way to express your amusement. Laughter is measured in duration, frequency, volume and sometimes lack thereof. There have been cases where I found something so funny I laughed so hard I couldn’t make a sound while I was laughing. That laughter is truly the best.

Some people live to make people laugh. They feel it defines them as a person. The class clown or a standup comedian prides themselves on their ability to make people laugh at any moment. There are others who strive not to be the class clown or a standup comedian but still try hard to make people laugh, and that’s alright. There are many who believe a humor is the most important aspect of an individual’s personality.

There are many different ways to elicit laughter. There’s shock humor, which is just for effect and the user doesn’t truly believe their sayings. This leads to racial humor, which when used incorrectly can be very dangerous. There’s topical humor, which is pretty much self explanatory. I am a fan of all of these, but my favorite brand is the one-liner. Quick, concise, and leaves them begging for more. It’s also my favorite because it stretches across all of the aforementioned genres. You can exhibit all of these brands through the one-liner. It’s that universal.

Our parents have always told us that if we’re being picked on, laugh with them and they can’t laugh at us. This is very true. When you’re constantly being joked about, the perfect way to fight this is not to retaliate, it’s to join. Because after all, if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

As I wrote this, I thought more about laughter being the best medicine. It really does have an impact when you think about it. When you laugh, you think of nothing but what you’re laughing about and possibly other times when you laughed that hard. Nothing matters at that point. You’re in a place where nothing can hurt you and you’re just happy. Laughter is truly the most positive, warm thing in the entire world. But, you can’t spell “slaughter” with out laughter, so I guess there are two sides to every coin.

~ That is all.