Friday, March 25, 2011

The Anti-Laugh Brigade

There are people who don't smile, not a genuine smile, not one from the heart. If their faces relax into a smile, it is usually a pained smile, with foreheads still crinkled up in worry and eyes, well, their eyes tell a different story altogether. Not an ounce of joy in them - just anxiety, nervousness, and if you look real deep, sheer terror.

There are people who do not laugh. No spontaneous eruption of merriment, no staccato bursts, no body shaking with the ha has. Instead, they emit a mirthless sound full of irony and often, sarcasm.

Ha ha, they seem to say, we're all fucked anyway, don't you see we're all fucked?

Fatalism is the new reality, they say, at least I'm not fooling myself. If you knew what I knew, you wouldn't be giving me that silly grin, you wouldn't be dumb enough to laugh at this tripe, you wouldn't be sitting here, thinking about all the vacant things that fill your vacuous mind, because life is real, life is serious and we are surrounded by threatening people and situations ALL OF THE TIME.

They can't help it of course.

But not to laugh is such a serious malady. And if there's only bile and bitterness inside, sooner or later, they melt everything around them.

Like love.

Like friendship.

Like the spontaneous enjoyment of a simple moment. Untrammeled by context or explanations or paragraphs of explication, explanation.

Newsflash. Life is fatal. You're gonna die anyway. It's all a cosmic joke. So let go. It doesn't matter.

It really doesn't.

No comments: