Laughter, a painful subject
Laughter, that is a hard and a touchy subject. So many times we laugh at things we should not laugh at. I understand that laughter is an emotional release, and that at times we can not control how our emotions take us over. Anyone that thinks our emotions do not control us, that think they have risen above the control of their emotions, is doing nothing but lying to themselves.
Laughter is a lot like the fight or flight fear response, it is built into us, it is a coping mechanism that allows us to maintain some semblance of control, a simple avoidance mechanism. One that allows us to avoid the reality of the situation, to avoid the painful thoughts and memories that not avoiding may lead to. Laughter is a self preservation mechanism that helps to prevent us from tumbling into the empty abyss of self loathing, self hate, self recrimination, and self pity.
Not all laughter is made to help us forget, but sometimes it helps us to remember. I know that no one in the US, over the age of 10 when the Challenger Shuttle blew up has not heard the joke about Christa McAuliffe's eye color. The only other name I remembered from the incident was Dick Scobee.
NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
I had forgotten the year and the date and the specifics, not the memory however, of that night, of the horror of the situation.
On January 28, 1986, the NASA shuttle orbiter mission STS-51-L and the tenth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members, which consisted of five NASA astronauts, one payload specialist and a civilian school teacher.
Laughter and jokes help us cope, I still to this day despise that eye color joke, as much I am sure of the people that grew tired of hearing the joke of why Natalie Wood did not bathe the night of her death. We joke, to cope, and we joke to laugh that we can go on living sane in an insane world.
Needless to say I did not find this to be an easy subject, I hope you all take a moment to remember the painful parts of history, and what people have given, so that others may not have to.