ìWere we brought here to laugh or cry?î
ó George Santayana
Laughter and tears are two qualities that separate us from all other mammals. We need joy in our lives, and the laughter that goes with it. We need to be able to laugh at ourselves from time to time. By the same token, we should not be ashamed to cry. Tears are the safety valves of the human heart.
I laugh a lot, mostly at myself. My wife says I take things too seriously, and she is right. It really helps to have memories of my childhood and growing up poor. I laugh, for example, when I think about the time Mom gave me $10 to buy shoes by myself for the first time.
I bought some slick gray, patent leather, pointy-toe shoes. They looked really sharp, that is, until it rained. Turns out the patent leather was just a thin layer glued to cardboard. The day it rained I was on my way to school. By the time I got there, the tops of my shoes had separated from the soles. My feet looked like two ugly Subway sandwiches. Thankfully, a gym teacher had a pair of sneakers I could wear.
Fox television show host Glen Beck went through a period where he was poor, too. I heard him talk about it. The ever-weeping conservative told a recent annual gathering of the Republican faithful how, 15 years ago, he lived in one room, had no money, no education, and was in a deep depression. He said he got out of it on his own, by sheer determination, reading books, and finding a job.
Then, he surprisingly used his personal struggle to argue that health care is not a right. Education, according to Beck, is not a right, either. I had to laugh. Unwittingly, I suppose, Beck was telling millions of Americans, ìbe ignorant, be sick, and if you die, it is your fault for being ignorant and sick.î Ha. Ha.
I laugh at what hypocrites we are. Take Tiger Woodsí woes for example. Tiger is one of the most famous athletes in the world. Then, oh my!, his dirty secret became public. The golf icon was having sex with ... I shudder to think of it ... women! As we know, that is something married men never do.
It just so happens, however, that sex ranks right up there with food, clothing and shelter as a basic human drive. Tiger Woods is a young man. He is built like a Greek statue. He is rich and famous. With all that going for him, as far as women are concerned, he is like a rich kid in a candy store. The only cure for Tigerís ìaddictionî is old age ó maybe. In any case, some of us should be laughing at ourselves for being such hypocrites about his situation.
Laugh. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is making big money on the speaking circuit. During a recent speech, she was found to have a note written on her palm. It read, ìTAX CUTS.îÄùNow, if a political speaker has to be reminded of that point, you have to wonder if they get the point. Next they will be telling us global warming is a hoax to scare us into socialism.
We need to laugh more often. Sometimes, though, we have to cry. We have to cry for the tens of thousands of American children who are abused, neglected, homeless, hungry, uneducated and unprotected. Cry for our children. By the way, if you see the movie, ìPrecious,î keep a hankie handy.
Cry for this country. Those who insist our government is broken are the very ones breaking it. Whatever you may think of President Obama, he has not been in office long enough to do much more than break bread. The tea partiers, birthers, secessionists and ultra-conservative haters seem to want to put public needs on hold for four years until Obama can be voted out of office. It is a crying shame.
Cry for the people of Haiti, Chile, Somalia and other parts of the world. They suffer natural and manmade disasters of biblical proportions and, ultimately, their suffering will affect us all. Still, it seems, as soon as the cameras leave, they are forgotten. Cry for the forgotten ones.
Indeed, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time to laugh and a time to cry. May we find the wisdom to know when the time is right, and do both.
Have a nice day!
Primus Mootry is an Anderson resident and a high school teacher.
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