Some people yesterday thought that I was too funny throughout my talk and the Q&A. There are many ways to think about this and many ways to address it.
But one way I was thinking of that might be of benefit to others and not simply me, is that there is a kind of laughter that goes along with pain. The kind of laughter you hear in addiction recovery programs. The kind of laughter that happens within grief.
Laughter doesn't have to reinforce our distance from the world. It can be the laughter of intimacy, of impossible situations.
Laughter can also be disturbing in its excess. Some of my Buddhist friends and teachers have made me laugh so hard I realized I don't really exist...at some point vertigo sets in.
We are not the only animal that laughs. Anyone who knows dogs and chimps can attest to that. And we are not the only animals with a sense of irony. As the keeper of many cats I'm convinced.
“Only the Jews can laugh about the holocaust.” This was said to me. Yes perhaps. But inside global warming—I know it's not a gas oven, but we're all suffering together.