# 16

Last Night I went to a dinner Christmas party. It was pretty big. There must have been about 100 + people there.
Among the socializers I noticed a young lady that I had gotten to know through the Palmer chiropractic visits. She was a beautiful young woman university age, that had helped translate on several occasions. The big thing that I noticed was that she was pregnant. I also knew that it had to be an unwedded situation. I could also see that there was some discomfort in the air around her as she socialized with the people around her. I saw people greet her and smile and talk all the while averting their eyes from her amazingly swollen belly. I said to myself “This is re-goddamn-diculous”. Of course for those who know me well socially awkward situations seem to draw me in. It is a strange affinity. So I walked up to her directly and said “Oh my God, this is one of the worst cases of parasites I have seen for quite a while!” She smiled and her buddy that was sitting right next to her proceeded to inform me with eyes wide open that she was pregnant. “Well duh!” Then I proceeded with great tact “Well you know the great thing about this pregnancy?” And the young mother responded “What?”. “That this child is definitely not mine!” The young woman gave me a slap on the arm and all had a good time. Humor was good in this situation to help let the young woman know that most of us accepted her decision to carry on with her pregnancy. To let her know that we as a community thought she had made a good decision and that we support her and we are not embarrassed by her.
Laughter has a great quality for healing and social integration. It breaks ice and brings people together. That is why I have always said that seriousness is taken all together too seriously. In fact I read somewhere that Aristotle, one of the most important philosophers of all time, is said to have completely dedicated his second book on poetics solely to laughter. I think the fact that he felt so strongly about this that he invested such a considerable amount of time to the subject is quite amazing. I believe that we lost touch with many of these notions somewhere along the line. I am willing to bet that in western society it happened in the dark ages. Where people developed a severe religion that drove people into such humility and seriousness that they covered there heads and faces with cowls and refused to look up to the sky and the sun out of fear that there was a horrible god that would strike them down. And that is probably where the tragedy set in and they then lost the laughter of the ancients. I think today we are just now starting to come out, see the sun and know that laughter is a good thing.
It is like what another famous humor philosopher Mike Myers (Heh-heh!) once said. “Humor is a series of islands. Life is just swimming from one island to the next”. Swimming is very enjoyable and one of the best exorcizes there is. It keeps us in shape and it keeps us going. But the island gives us rest and hope for the next swim.
It is also important to remember that merriment is to laugh copiously (a Rusty definition)! So know when somebody wishes you a “Merry Christmas” they are wishing you copious laughter.
Merry Christmas!
FeO2