Whilst I was in college studying Drama, anytime we were given something to improvise, most of the time everyone including myself, would do something funny. Make people laugh. This was the easy thing to do and a safe option. You could easily do something silly, say something funny, anything really and people would laugh. If anyone was given a task to make someone cry, it would be a lot more difficult to do. This isn't because the person isn't able to make other people cry-it's because people who are watching and listening are too afraid to be sad. How many times do you hear people say "Oh I don't like that song, it's too depressing" or, "I can't watch that film, it makes me cry." These are people that are afraid to connect with their emotions. Kurt Vonnegut once even said:-
"Laughter and tears are both responses to both frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterwards."
Now there is nothing wrong with this at all. Who wouldn't want to be constantly happy all the time?? However in the current way of the world, this is actually impossible to do unless you were on some kind of happy pills. But surely it is better to be however your feeling, regardless of what others might say?? Regardless to what you might have to "clean up".
If I went into work and spoke to one of my colleagues or if I spoke to one of the many acquaintances I have and said something along the lines of "I'm feeling really down today, I feel so sad, I don't think I can take much more of life", people would believe it or not-laugh. Their response would be something like "Oh Muk, ha ha, he is always depressed ha ha". They would be too afraid to want to actually even want to talk to me seriously and cast aside what I would truly be feeling and pass it off as a joke. People that actually really know me, which is unfortunately not many anymore, would probably want to sit down and talk to me. The majority of the people who read this blog seem to focus on the few funny bits rather than the serious ones.
I am not saying that everyone should be sad. I'm not saying everyone should go around and be downbeat and have negative feelings all the time. I'm trying to say that everyone should just feel how they are feeling and not act out an emotion. If you're happy, be happy. If you're sad, be sad. If you're angry, then be angry. But don't kid yourself to be feeling something you're not as this can just send your soul into oblivion.
Pablo Neruda once said "Laughter is the language of the soul". That could be true, but only if you really feel like laughing. Otherwise it is better to cry then to pretend.
