All World
Gayatri Pariwar

Have you forgotten to laugh?

Life has given us a wonderful gift in the form of laughter, but these days this gift seems to be gathering dust in most of the families. Till childhood, joy and laughter come to everyone naturally. But as kids grow into adolescence and youth, worldly responsibilities begin to grow and the naturalness of laughter begins to fade out from lives. If difficulties and troubles also increase, laughter completely disappears from faces. Laughter becomes a rarity and we only reminisce the times when we used to laugh. It feels as if we have forgotten what laughter is.

Where does the laughter that shines on young faces disappear as we grow up? Why does it not stay with us forever? Every element needs an empty space in life to fill and the same is true with laughter as well. If a large stone is placed on a bud, it is futile to imagine that it will ever grow into a flower. Also, even a very soft object when placed under a heavy load becomes hard and rigid, like the cotton that is filled in a mattress is initially quite soft but with continuous usage becomes flat and hard. Scientifically, an object is soft when there is sufficient space between its molecules, which allows them to move with respect to each other. This is quite true for laughter as well.

Laughter is intimately related to qualities like softness, simplicity, easiness, compassion and sensitivity. As long as these qualities live in us, laughter comes to us naturally. However, the moment complexities, stress and worries enter our lives, the naturalness of our lives ends. These negative emotions make our lives insensitive and all its softness transforms into rigidity. If laughter only was a few physical actions like a few inch wider spreading of lips or creation of some voices from throat, it would not have mattered much. But this is not how it is. Laughter is actually an expression of feelings that are dissolved in mind and have the capability to tickle our inner selves. Many memories have the capability to make us laugh. Humorous poems, stories, cartoons and comedy serials have many different expressions that force us to laugh. Laughter represents a person’s inner joy, freeness of mind, joyful beats of heart, and a praise that oozes out from each and every pore of the body. It is a form of prayer that our inner being sings out to Nature. It is a poetic expression of our thankfulness to Her.

We are happy when we lead a life devoid of pressures and worries. In fact, how to make this human life happier has been the main quest of humanity through most of its activities right from the beginning. A commonly adopted point of view is that – to be happy humans must be given more and more leisure time. But strangely, this has actually created a tussle between time and man. We utilise the free time less to lead a carefree life; and hence, create more and more causes for worry! Every invention of science is primarily motivated to help man complete all the tasks in his hands in as little time as possible so that he can save for himself sufficient time to spend as per his liking. This left over time he wants for his leisure and happiness, but what has happened today is that instead of spending his time for a better life, he is deploying it for more and more work. As a result, to do more and more work, he crowds his conscious mind with only work related thoughts, plans, experiences and memories. We get so inundated with our work related activities that we are left with no time for any other important thing in life. And as a result, laughter also loses its importance and fades out from our lives.

Beauty, quality and wholesomeness of life completely depends on how much balance can we establish between all the ingredients of life, and how well. And knowing how to lead a balanced life is the true - Art of Living. In order to attain our goals and fulfil our lofty ambitions, we divert our attention away from all other important aspects of life. In this quest, we leave behind laughter as well, without which our life is incomplete. This is the reason why despite attaining great success, people go far away from their natural happiness and laughter.

Laughter comes to life naturally, but it can sustain in life only when a person stays away from drab and artificial living. If life is lived in a mechanical manner, bearing loads of burden of work and steeped in artificiality, it loses its natural flavour. Life is not only what is explicit, there is much of it that is implicit and yet, it is integral to our life. A person, who tries to understand all dimensions of life and puts in efforts to develop each one of them, maintains the naturalness of life; and so the flowers of laughter bloom always in his life. If a person leads life under any kind of pressure, he will be surely deprived of natural laughter. Laughter embellishes only the life that is lived freely.

Despite the pressures exerted by work overdose and responsibilities thrust upon us, if we wish to enjoy our lives we have to create some empty spaces in our lives so that laughter can find a natural place and bless us with happiness.