DEATH AND HUMOR | 2006-10-26
At least a hundred times people have said to me, "Even after all you've been through, you STILL have a great sense of humor." I appreciate the compliment, but they've got the sequence backwards.
There was a guy who was more of a hero than any of the Greatest Generation types who go into crying fits over their own sacrifice and heroism. He was blind and in a wheelchair, and he had a job he was good at. He never asked for any help he didn't HAVE to have and he made damned sure he paid you back for it. In his job, he made sure he was WORTH the accommodations they made for him because he did the job and was so ready for overtime that no one could replace him.
One person I knew worshipped this guy to the extent he deserved. They suffered with him, but never told him anything about their sympathy with the miserable side of his life. This person would gets tears in their eyes when talking about him.
Then one day that admiring person was told that this man, paraplegic and in a wheelchair, had lost his job. That person's reaction was to burst out in hysterical laughter. I understood that perfectly. This was so bad you could only laugh or cry.
And in this case you couldn't cry enough.
Man is the animal who laughs. Man is the animal that knows he is going to die.
Eric Hoffer was talking about what people consider the hallmark of True Wisdom. The Wise Man is seen as grim and hard-faced. Hoffer concluded, "If you want to see what the picture of a Truly Wise Man looks like, watch a cow solemnly chewing its cud."
Snakes have no sense of humor. Monkeys do. Snakes have no pity, no empathy. Monkeys do.
The same rule holds in our human race. Our snakes never laugh.