On Gratitude and Laughter
FOREWARNED FOREWORD: If this tempts you to see me as a Pollyanna, please apprise my family: They love to laugh.
GRATITUDE. Thanksgiving is THE day for gratitude. Oh, yeah? Well, not for me, it ain't. I need many more gratitude fixes than a mere day's worth. Like most of us, I have blessings, mixed blessings and, um, "challenges." I would love to view each challenge as an opportunity, but don't always manage that feat. Ranting or whining Sharing helps me upon occasion, but usually only with relatively minor annoyances. For true challenges, I need the really strong stuff: Gratitude.
I am almost always able to find, somewhere in the tragedy um, mess um, opportunity, something for which I can be grateful. Sometimes, it's something very positive. Sometimes, it's only that the situation is not even worse than it is. Some may see that as only very cold comfort. I, however, (choose to?) feel considerably comforted when things could be much worse, but aren't. Finding something for which to be authentically grateful always improves my mood and my perspective. For me, that is at least half the struggle in the process of coming to terms with something difficult.
I learned about the power of gratitude from a neighbor who had had a wonderful husband. However, physical contact had been a problem, literally from day one. After she became pregnant, such physicality as had existed ended, save for pecks on the cheek, etc. Yadda, yadda, the marriage eventually ended. She was at peace with that. A couple of years later, however, her former husband came out to her (in a brief phone call) as gay. This not only re-opened old wounds, but upset her more than anything else about her marriage and divorce.
She couldn't settle her emotions and she couldn't understand why she couldn't settle them. Finally, she told a minister her story. He asked, "Did anything come from the marriage for which you are grateful?" Before he finished saying "grateful," she replied, "My child." The minister turned his palms upward, shrugged slightly and said nothing else. She was taken aback. That's all? She headed home, replaying the scene in her head. By the time she arrived at her home, she had gotten it and was totally at peace. She was never again upset about her marriage or her former husband.
If you do not already take advantage of using gratitude purposefully, I hope you try it; and I hope it works as well for you as it does for me. Now, on to....
LAUGHTER, SMILES, HUMOR, ETC.: Joan Rivers, to name only one, wrote and spoke about humor as a means of coping with loss, in her case, the suicide of her husband. However, humor, laughter, etc. has other benefits. A greeting card I received once included this OT verse:
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.1
And no one loves dry bones! I provided this quote only to show that people had observed, even thousands of years ago, that smiling, laughing, cheerfulness, humor, etc. are good for your physical health, as well as for your mental/emotional health.
Joan Rivers claimed that smiling and laughing, even when you are just totally faking it, still does you good.2 As she put it (I'm paraphrasing some), "Your brain is stupid. When you smile or laugh, your brain says, "Oh, we're happy!'" Then, your brain begins releasing endorphins3 and doing whatever else the easily-duped minx does when happy. Faking it may or may not work for you. The good news is, you lose nothing by trying: It's free; it doesn't require much; and I know of no adverse side effects. If faking it doesn't work for you, find things somewhere that will make you genuinely laugh or smile, rather than marinating in upset or sadness. Youtube is probably a good place to start, with everything from the Marx brothers to laughing babies.
Not expecting you to take my word or the word of Joan Rivers, I googled for scientific articles. Checking the results of my Google Scholar search for yourself is probably best because you may find the specific sub-topic(s) in which you are most interested, like stress or pain or specific conditions. However, I have posted a few links to general articles for starters.
Link to my search results:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=benefits+of+laughter+humor+&b...
Links to some general articles:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/s...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2762283/ referencing Norman Cousins' article in the New England Journal of Medicine about how he used humor to heal http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM197612232952605
http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0033-2909.127.4.504
So, here's laughing at you, kid.4
Gratefully, HenryWallace
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
1 Proverbs 17:22, King James Version (FWIW, the first 29 Chapters of Proverbs were supposedly written by King Solomon, the allegedly wise guy.)
2 Voted by some group that supposedly knows about such things as one of the five best or funniest film scenes or film lines in film history. Or something like that.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bsf2x-aeE]
3 http://www.everydayhealth.com/endorphins/guide/
4 [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW2o2aZkCyc]
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Music is another great tool. I put some text over each video, so they wouldn't smush together into a big rectangle.
McCartney may know my neighbor. This was released 2007, while he was in the throes of a very bitter, costly divorce.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRKhqdb8EoE]
An acquired taste, perhaps
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOgpT5rEKIU]
The cheerful song on which Look for the Union Label was based (ILGWU)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOthCD8n0mA]
No one does this song better, even Sinatra or Bennett.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpcEhFlwYi0]
A voice for which to be very grateful
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnk0Y12BPNA]
Very similar title; very different ditty
[video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfwvpxqz4fI]
May all your laugh lines be long ones
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOX9GN-xwhI]
Comments
Major recommendation for The Pogues! "Been in a palace, been
in a jail; just don't want to be reborn a snail"
Stand as erect as you can; breathe; and give a big smile. Short term alleviation of depression. Joan Rivers was correct.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Thank you, duckpin! I like them, too.
An anthem of sorts could be based on the last lines:
Joan Rivers was a smart woman.
Did you happen to notice that Look for the Union Label was based on Look for the Silver Lining? I learned that while do this blog entry and thought of you. I should have made the connection before, but I never did.
The Pogues did not last as long as I would have liked but
they were about my favorites at the time. An Irish/punk amalgam with a bit of nostalgia - I still play their albums and their reunion album recorded in Paris is surprisingly good considering the track record for band reunions.
"Look for the Union Label" was indeed based on "...Silver Lining" and unfortunately, there wasn't one. It was an early public symptom of the unceasing war on organized labor that the ILGWU sang "union label" rather than specifically their union even though they themselves paid all costs. Largely an immigrant union, it shows how immigrants were essential to organizing the private sector.
"Got on a lucky one; came in 18 to 1; I've got a feeling, this year's for me and you..."
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Unions: another example of Dems abandoning their base for $$
I may have quoted this to you before:
http://prospect.org/article/how-dlc-does-it
Of course, various unions were the biggest "traditional interest groups" donating to the Democratic Party before 1980, if not the only "traditional interest groups."
Obviously "electability," was a smokescreen/red herring.* The first midterms after the first DLC President took office marked one of very few times Democrats had lost both houses of Congress since the New Deal; and they've never returned to their dominance of Congress since then. And now, they have less power on local, state and federal levels than they've ever had. An aspiring politician of any kind today might well decide to run as a Republican, outside the thirteen out of fifty states in which the state legislature is still Democratic.
*From a recent post of mine:
http://caucus99percent.com/comment/214077#comment-214077
Even though the unions of the AFL-CIO have been solid
backers of the Democrats, Big Money was not happy with the few laws enacted that labor wanted. Labor staffed the phones, knocked on doors, and put up signs.
With Citizens United, the floodgates were opened and corporate(and foreign) cash flowed, especially to those who did the bidding of Wall St and AIPAC. The Clintons and the Schumers and most of the rest were happy to sell out organized labor for the largesse from the Private Jet Privateers.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
IMO, Citizens United enabled very little that had not
already been going on with PAC money and contributions to the DNC and RNC that were funneled as the donors wanted. For example, when Hillary ran against Obama she was caught taking money from China. After being caught, she gave back the money, but how many foreign donations over the years were not caught? Before Citizens United, Obama took in half a billion dollars not counting PAC money or other "dark" money.
How much money does it really take before diminishing returns, in votes attracted, sets in? There are only so many ads you can buy before voters get ticked off. Obama did things like have a duplicate of Air Force One, right down to the Presidential seal on every head rest cover. Much as I supported him in 2008, that one got to me. Retired domestics in their nineties were sending him donations in amounts like $4 and he was spending it like that?
(I tried to find the pic of the interior I saw in 2008, but neither Google nor Google Images is cooperating.)
The point I was trying to make, and will concede it may be wrong
is that after Citizens United, the sell-out Democrats can count on a steady and enormous cash flow and they can hire phone bankers, sign planters, neighborhood canvassers, and not have to rely on union volunteers who, after all, expect promises to be kept.
You don't have to promise anything for at-will temp labor who you have staffing your campaigns.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I don't know if your point about Citizens United is correcct or
not because I don't know how much Citizens changed what they were already doing. We think we have had transparency, but we never have had it, IMO. Hence, the name "dark money."
Whether I am right or wrong about that, I don't think they've had to rely on volunteers to phone bank for a while, not financially. Or small donations, except for Sanders, of course. I think they beg for small donations to make the small donor feel invested enough in the candidate's winning to get to the polls and also to help them disguise the extent to which big donors own them. If the Sanders run did nothing else--and I believe it did more--it shone a bright light on that. I hope the people remember.
Anyway, the only place it may really get too costly for their deep, deep campaign pockets may be those people who pick up four or five neighbors and drive them to the polls on election day. However, if those went away, I bet they'd find a reason to use the defense budget to fund buses and drivers to get us to the polls on election day and cities and towns could use them for other things during the year. Or, maybe they'd just find a better way to rig voting machines to neutralize the effect of human lever pullers.
IOW, I think they have so much money that they have already loosed themselves from union donations, as Rosenberg said, and union volunteers, possibly all volunteers. T However, I think, if they were still depending on union volunteers, EFCA would have been signed on Inauguration Day 2008, right along with Lily Ledbetter. Instead, we had Trumka saying, "I've had a snootful of this sh*t!" https://www.thenation.com/article/afls-trumka-pols-selling-out-workers-i...
But, union leaders, like so many other voters, believe unions would be even worse off under Republicans. So, they go LOTE, too. And maybe they even go LOTE crookedly, too. During the primary, so many posters said they did not know about any union vote as to whom to endorse, yet most unions claimed their members had voted to support Hillary. Who was telling the truth? I'm sure I'll never know.
Most of the above is JMO, of course. I have no inside info. I just think way too much money and power are involved to leave such things to chance. Much like planting question askers in the audience and getting questions from network moderators to the candidates in advance . I don't even believe my own lying eyes and ears anymore.
Lily Tomlin
Friends of mine in the United Mine Workers and UAW were
definitely volunteers and the Democrats depended on them extensively for basic campaign labor.
I think Citizens United and the illegal dark money made volunteers unneeded and unwanted when they wanted something in return. I think the kiss-off of EFCA by Obama told the unions that they are no longer an integral part of the Democratic party and if they - the unions - want to vote Dem, fine, but if not hasta luego.
I think Citizens United gave both parties the ability to accept mega-donors as the chief funding for their operations. And, it turns out, for the Dems, it wasn't enough; and for the Republicans, Trump didn't need as much money as Clinton.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
One thing of which I am sure: We'll never know
everything about went on with money before or after Citizens' United.
Exhibit A: http://caucus99percent.com/content/questionable-donations-hillary-warren...
Aloha!
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Aloha. Mahalo, sojourns,
It's akin to my silver lining in the direst situations
I can always find something to be grateful for or laugh about. It makes life bearable. Just don't laugh AT your family unless it's a dog. And only a smallish one, at that. She forgives for food.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Laugh AT anyone is risky, unless he or she is trying to make
you laugh, as when telling you a joke, for example. Some people make the distinction of laughing with someone, versus laughing at someone. I considered that distinction while composing the blog entry, but I really wanted to echo the line from Casablanca as closely as I could.
(What a memorable film! The studio intended it as a B film, too. I can never get over that Bogart was born to the hoity toity. He sounds so street.)
Nice
Uplifting. Good stuff. Thanks.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Thank you so much! My goal was to help lead into
Thanksgiving; and gratitude and laughter have really been my wonder "drugs."
Grateful for this!
Happy Thanksgiving, HenryWallace!
How lovely of you to say so. So glad it resonated with you.
Happy Thanksgiving to you as well.
how did you know i so needed this?
as do millions of us, even here in the usa, where so many do so well
it's very hard to be a thinking feeling human when that entails knowing that we've been killing, enslaving, exploiting each other and the animals and the planet since we arrived here
remembering the funny is the way to live with it
I'm so glad you found it useful.
Happy Thanksgiving, Caucus 99ers! Holiday Film Festival
The Marx brothers and Carmen Miranda, then the Marx brothers and Marilyn Monroe. What's not to like?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgaaBYchKcc]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6QRrUcuo4M]
If the Marx brothers don't tickle your fancy, maybe these will?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WivhDJRXCU4]
Enjoy.