"....... and the thing was, he really didn't know what it was about & then you said..... 'because I don't want to!' "
PEELS OF LAUGHTER PEELS OF LAUGHTER MORE PEELS OF UNCONTROLLABLE LAUGHTER!
Clearly it was hilariously funny, clearly they'd been laughing a while, clearly the amusement to them was........ utterly about them. As a punchline, 'because I don't want to!' isn't exactly entertaining. Are you with me on that? It isn't ever going to get high on the list of 'suggested quips to make people fall about laughing'.
Fair enough, I came in on the tail end of 'the joke'. But if that was the way to hammer it home then I have my doubts about the hilarity of the rest of the story!
See the thing is, and here is the thing, it had absolutely nothing to do with me. I did only hear part of it, & I felt it misplaced to join in. Humour is, in part at least, a subjective affair & it also can be a private one. We know don't we, that we don't all laugh at the same things for a start, that even very well known & clever come-dians/diennes can fall flat on their faces when no one laughs, we know that people who earn their living making people laugh are not universally aclaimed either within their home country or in someone else's. It is generally accepted that as humans we have differing likes, dislikes, tastes & desires in terms of our entertainment choices. As a communication issue, do we need to know any more than that? Is something funny only when someone laughs? Could I have made it to do with me & found a way to join in....... would their situation have benefitted for my interaction....... why is it that I won't ever know & that makes me a little sad?
And how important is that anyway? And do I have any more questions about this??
Laughter serves a purpose above & beyond providing an acknowledgment for humour. For me, what I haven't said so far, is that the humour of the situation (as decreed by the huge waves of guffawing laughter) was infectious. I did laugh with them (not that I would let them see! I mean you know you don't often laugh with complete strangers right, that would just be too weird...... don't you think? Especially when you consider I had no clue what they were laughing about I had simply caught the atmosphere they were creating..........). The entire point here is that their laughter did give me a lift in my spirits. And I didn't even need one!!
There's a theme here. Because maybe I should have laughed with them. Anyone who knows me well & spends any time with me will know that I do indeed talk to anyone. And I mean properly talk to complete strangers about anything, not always instigated by me....... Let's set that statement into context before any of you decide to place me firmly in the category of lunatic!
What I do not do is go looking for conversations with anyone I might happen to bump into on the streets. What I do do is treat everybody with the same respect I anticiapte I would like for myself.
That has quite broad potential. For me what that actually means is that should anything come up in a public place that I see someone needs support for, I will take part. Decide on your own perception for 'support' here, & no I don't always feel like it. But, quite often I will instinctively, intuitively, use my voice for exactly the purpose I was given it. Call it advocacy for the human condition, call it noseyness, call it interference or whatever you want. Need is everywhere, perceived or otherwise, we are all vulnerable to need within ourselves & others. All our outward behaviour is about need, it's a reflection of how we feel on the inside. You see someone behaving awkwardly, likely they are feeling uncomfortable about something. But maybe you wouldn't see it that way unless you felt something too. See people laughing, likely they are happy inside, or at least that's what it may look like, to you, that day.
A lady I saw at the supermarket was having some bother with her trolley, it wouldn't go where she wanted it to, boy do I know how annoying that is. There wasn't much in it yet (her trolley) mine was thus far empty, we swapped & I went off in search of another. Now, I do not have all the time in the world to shop. I loathe the whole supermarket experience from beginning to end. I have a passionate distaste for the failure of supermarket trolleys & the stores' inability to replace dodgy ones. As a result, I celebrate every time I pick a good one! You know it's the small things in life that can really make a big difference! Anything that makes my shopping experience more about myself & at least tries to make use of the solitude gets my vote. I was not out looking for people to play with, I was in a hurry, I didn't want to part with my favoured trolley. But I imagined how this lady felt, rightly or wrongly I imposed it upon her, I knew that what I'd love love LOVE in that instance would be for someone to go get me a better trolley!!!! So I gave her mine. I ended up with quite a shocking one but you know that was quite funny because when I bashed into the same lady with it (while pulling it backwards because the blasted thing wouldn't go forwards!!) I suggested she run for the hills before I got her again. Oh how we laughed........ And do you want to know what she said to me? All the way round filling her trolley with her shopping, her focus had completely lifted from the issues she'd been dealing with when she came in, because all she could now think about was the fact that she'd never see me again & yet people could surprise you. She told me her daughter had just been diagnosed with a terminal cancer, she didn't know what would happen to her grandchildren when the time came. With the irritating experience of that rotten trolley her negativity was being compounded at every turn & she felt herself sinking fast. Her body language, her mood, her every thought was connected to the deep sadness within her & it sought to overwhelm her. I make no apology for reporting this event in this style. Anyone deciding that my suggestion (that a supermarket trolley can make that much difference to anyone's existence) is ridiculous, I say that clearly you don't spend as much time in supermarkets as I do. If you have no comprehension of how completely & utterly miserable they can make you within moments of wheeling them into the store, please swap places with whoever it is in your family who does the bulk of the shopping every now & again & trust me, your delight at their presence in your life will soar greatly. The point is, not that trolleys are a daily irritant that should be abolished forthwith (although I dream of that day coming) but that the simple things in life are free. Laughter, is free. Pain, is free. Isolation is free for the taking. I had a great laugh when I heard those two girls having their fit of giggles & I never told them. I isolated myself from their fun because I had decided in a split second that it wasn't mine. However, I somehow bonded with the lady at the supermarket & in the same length of time, a split second, I had removed myself from my isolation & broken ranks with accepted human behaviour. After all, how often do we even say hello to people we pass in the streets? We walk past other humans every single day as though they aren't there. I felt invisible & irrelevant with the laughing girls, after all, they hardly needed me. But the trolley lady, the trolley lady was sending out a different set of signals........ How do I know that the laughing girls wouldn't benefit from knowing they had made me smile? I made a choice based on...... what, exactly? Accepted social behaviour with strangers?
I'm writing this in awe of both experiences knowing they are tied together & not fully understanding why. However, I believe it has something to do with the connectedness of the human race or the lack thereof. I sense very much that we have joined a new evolutionary curve. I am far from the only person I know who is slowly but surely coming out of the social conditioning of our age that we don't talk to strangers, that the unknown is something to be feared, that involving yourself in the lives of others is somehow taboo unless invited. There are lots of us! As society has changed, we all move around either for education, for work, to run from bad experiences or towards better ones, we have contributed to the enormous loss of community spirit so evident during World Wars & pre-industrialisation. But you know what? It's coming back.
I'm not promising that the next time someone makes me laugh in public (& I've never met them before or think I'm likely to again) that I'll know what to do as instinctively as I did with the trolley lady. Or that I'll automatically want to do or say anything. But I would like to think that one day I might progress so far in my own social evolution to have come away maybe having said thank-you, maybe having joined in & hung around long enough to smile & chat, maybe even knowing their names. Not because I'm mad, desperate or lonely. Not because I have no clue or respect for people's privacy & their right to laugh in public unmolested by me. But because, purely & simply, it just feels like the right thing to do.
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