The Lighter Side of Life

While reading this site, or many sites like mine. It's so easy to think that the author is mired in depression and misery. I'll admit I have problems in this area, but I'm not always in a woe-is-me frame of mind. Yes, I'm confronting something serious, but I hope I'm doing it with an occasional touch of humor and that wretched disease known as good hope.

With a screen name like "The Sinister Porpoise" I hope you don't take me seriously or think that this is a Rocky Horror Picture Show fan site. Okay, let me backtrack. I hope you don't take me seriously when I'm not trying to be. On the other hand, when I am being serious I trust my readers have the sense to recognize it.
You see, the one thing I've learned is that a sense of humor helps us through life. We view our spirituality as a serious quest, and it is. Part of this journey is learning to laugh at life a little, as odd as it may seem. Without acknowledging this lighter side, our souls become heavy and burdened.

With it, even the worst moments in our life can eventually become bearable. I'm sure God has a sense of humor, although at times I think the Depeche Mode song Blasphemous Rumors hit the nail on the head. More honestly, I used to think that. I leave such viewpoints to Depeche Mode and Kurt Vonnegut now.

Why is laughter important? To answer this we must examine what humor really is. Good humor is truth based on someone's pain. When we laugh with a person, we are saying we understand their pain, empathize with it, and say to the person telling the joke "We've been there." Laughing at someone is a sign of fear that you may be in that person's position someday.

And I fully expect that when I die, I'll find out, as the theme to a Penn and Teller movie states that the joke was on me. If you're a Monty Python fan, just remember the end of The Life of Brian with that catchy little tune Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, and remember that the last laugh is on you. So don't forget to look at The Sunny Side of Life. If you know of any more song titles I can work in, send me an e-mail.