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Sometimes It's Just
Not Funny!
by Swami
Beyondananda
I've often maintained that life is a
comedy of situations, and we're on a fool's
journey -- and the way of the "enlightened
fool" is to lovingly laugh at our human
foolishness. But there are those times that
our foolishness -- the nonsense we humans have
been tricked into believing -- is no longer
laughable, and causes a world of pain. In
other words, sometimes the human comedy just
ain't funny.
We as a society are just pulling
ourselves out from under the rubble, having
experienced waves of shock and sadness, as the
magnitude of the recent tragedy sinks in.
Personally, I haven't felt very funny. In
fact, there have been times when I've actually
questioned my career choice, wondering if
anything will ever be funny again. And then
there have been those rare moments where rays
of laughter poked through the clouds to
illuminate the gloom.
One such moment came very early on when
I heard a Senator and a military spokesman
blame the terrorist attack on "insufficient
human intelligence." It took me a moment to
realize they were talking about not having
enough spies, but the truth they inadvertently
revealed is unmistakable. Perhaps a few more
intelligent choices here and there, and the
whole tragedy might have been averted. Another
moment came for me a few days later in the
form of a plaintive parody of the old Harry
Belafonte song, "Day-O." My version was
"Pray-O" -- "Pray light comes, or we gonna go
home." And it also included the line, "Come
Mr. Taliban, carry me Bin Laden."
But these moments were few and far
between. Although my alter ego the Swami
insists that "the Farce is always with us," I
could find little to laugh about. I watched
Jay Leno his first night back to see how he
would deal with it. Instead of his usual
monologue, he came out from behind the
comedian persona to express his own sadness.
He said that the horrific tragedy had put his
own role as an entertainer into perspective:
"I'm the guy who brings cookies to the
firemen."
The next night, he was a bit more "back
in the saddle," even offering up a Bill
Clinton joke. But everyone could see that
comedy must now fill a different role. There
have been several newspaper and magazine
articles on "the end of irony," although what
they really were talking about was an end to
cynicism. Still I wondered, where does comedy
go after such a sobering event? Does it become
escapist fluff to numb us from the pain? Or is
there still a way it can shine a light on the
shadow, but with compassion rather than
meanness?
I had a bit of a revelation last
weekend, when I was scheduled to do a comedy
performance at a conference banquet on
Saturday night, and a talk for an Attitudinal
Healing center on Sunday morning. For most of
the week, I was dreading getting up in front
of an audience and having to be funny. It felt
so phony and forced. But as Saturday evening
approached, people at the conference started
coming up to me and saying things like, "Boy,
are we looking forward to your performance!"
and "We really need this healing."
And so I surrendered to my role as
bringer of comedy and laughter. The audience
drank in the comedy like parched prospectors
who find a desert oasis. And the waves of
laughter washed away sadness, anger, and fear
-- and released the suffering that had already
served its purpose. I didn't do topical
material, nor did I make any reference to
recent events. There was no need to. Instead I
performed the Swami's cosmic comedy about all
aspects of the human condition and human
nature. The closest I came to the current
world situation was in leading the audience in
chanting the "Peace Mantra" ("Ah ... peace on
it!") and I could see layers of pain,
frustration, and judgment being released.
The next morning, I was back in my Steve
persona (or was Swami channeling ME?) as I did
my talk on the Five Healing Qualities of
Laughter:
1. Laughter
reminds us we are bigger than any problem we
face.
2.
Defenseless comedy evokes defenseless
laughter.
3. Laughter
illuminates the shadow.
4. Humor is
a mind-altering substance.
5. Laughter
invites celebration, and reminds us of the
joy in life.
Once again, I saw that there was no need
to refer to current events, and yet each of
laughter's qualities could be used to gain
healing perspective. And I began to see that
the power of comedy in the light of tragedy is
NOT to help us forget, but to help us remember
our highest human qualities, and to bring not
just the release of laughter, but also wisdom
and compassion.
And while I see comedy becoming kinder,
there is still a place for irony. As the Swami
says, "Pumping ironies helps build a strong
body politic twelve ways!" The word "healing"
comes from the same root as "whole" and
"holy." In fact, healing means to restore
wholeness. And one of the higher functions of
comedy, through irony, is to give us the whole
picture by revealing what has been hidden. In
this recent situation, one of the sad ironies
is that we trained Bin Laden -- and as in many
other cases, we helped create the toxic
terrain which enables "free radicals" to
infect the body politic. When we fail to
recognize these ironies, we are doomed to
recreate them in the future.
So I would be wary of any edicts
suggesting comedians soft-pedal glaring
contradictions and incongruities in our
politics and culture. One of the first things
that Hitler did when he came to power was get
rid of the cabaret comedians because of the
power comedy has to break through the trance
of "impropaganda."
Similarly, during the darkest days of
the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras, ironic jokes
were among the few beacons of hope in the
Soviet Union, because humor allowed people to
acknowledge what couldn't be spoken directly.
These jokes were a kind of "code" that people
used to affirm that they could see past the
propaganda to the truth. A classic joke that
originated during that era:
Q. What is the difference between
capitalism and communism?
A. In capitalism, man exploits man. In
communism, it's the other way around.
At the moment, America is united in both
sorrow and resolve, and this is a good thing.
The sorrow has drawn us closer to the people
and things we love, and has put the
materialism of the past two decades in proper
perspective. The resolve has awakened the
proverbial "sleeping giant," and not just in
our willingness to fight to defend our
freedoms. We have also been awakened to how
small the world really is, and the ways in
which our high standard of living can no
longer protect us or isolate us from the dis-eases
of the world body politic.
As we begin to deal with this reality,
healing laughter and conscious comedy will
both be in demand. Right now, in the midst of
tragedy we need the healing balm of laughter
to remind us of the joy sometimes hidden
behind the pain and suffering in life. I
remember when my dad passed away, there were
plenty of tears. But there was also laughter
as we remembered and celebrated the funny
things he said and did. So it is now, that
humor is there to remind us of what we love
about life. No need to force laughter before
we are ready; just let it bubble to the
surface naturally.
In facing the extremes of knee-jerk
patriotism on one end, and knee-jerk pacifism
on the other, we will need all the wisdom and
discernment we can muster to make sure we
don't end up kneeing the wrong jerks. We will
need plenty of "irony supplements" to bring to
consciousness some of the foolish things we do
to squander our freedom and waste our
resources. For example, how come the "home of
the free" spends more money building prisons
than building schools? And if war is a
necessary evil, why don't we spend as much on
peace as a "necessary good?"
Then of course, we have already come
face to face with the most glaring irony of
all -- the classic oxymoron "Holy War."
Getting the irony here once and for all will
prevent us from plunging into our own holy war
against holy wars.
Perhaps the highest gift of comedy --
aside from healing our sadness and pointing
out the incongruities we wouldn't normally
recognize -- is the power of playful
imagination. At last week's musical benefit
telethon, a notable moment was when Neil Young
sang "Imagine"-- a song that had been
temporarily banned from the Clear Channel
radio play list right after the terrorist
attack. (Imagine no "Imagine"... )
But as the world came to its good
senses, that powerful song was right back in
our face, daring us to step outside the box of
"heaven and hell," "my religion vs. your
religion," and fear-based greed. Imagine us
applying some of that real human intelligence
for a change, the kind that imagines a way we
can all heal together instead of finding
better ways to kill each other. Imagine a
world where "Imagine" is our "Natural Anthem"
and we sing it at ballgames.
Comedy sparks imagination because it
necessarily relates ideas in a new or unusual
way. So I will end this piece with three wild
ideas that began in comedy, but just might be
applicable in the so-called real world, if we
dare enough to imagine. Here goes:
1) Disarmaggedon.
With all of the "end times"
conversation, why don't we redesign this war
between good and evil? Let's set a date for
Nonjudgment Day -- maybe April Fool's Day of
next year -- and actually have a
Disarmaggedon ceremony between former
enemies, where each lays down his fire arms,
and raises up his human arms. I see long
lines of volunteers from all different
conflicting groups walking onstage from
opposite directions, embracing...
2) Put the Pope to Use!
We are actually blessed to have Pope
John Paul II on the earth right now. Why?
Because who better to hear the confession of
each and every nation? Every country in the
world has perpetrated something on someone,
and we've all been carrying this huge burden
all these centuries. Imagine the leaders of
every country in a great processional walk
into that small confessional ... and
secretly confess all of their nation's sins
and ask forgiveness. Will it help? I dunno,
but like chicken soup, it sure couldn't
hurt!
3) The Manhelpin' Project.
We did it before, and we can do it
again. During World War II, our government
launched a secret project to develop atomic
weapons before the Axis Powers did. We put
all of our resources and inventiveness into
doing something no one had ever done before,
and on an impossible deadline to boot. Now,
nearly 60 years later we have a chance to
prove we've actually learned something. We
can take that same resourcefulness and
resolve -- and launch the Manhelpin' Project
to develop renewable New Clear energy for
all. How much would it cost? $100 million?
$500 million? All it would take would be
someone with the wealth of Osama Bin Laden,
only willing to use it for constructive
purposes.
Well, those are my visions. I invite you
to turn off the TV and tell-a-vision too.
May we all wake up laughing and leave
laughter in our wake.
May the FARCE be with you...
**********
Read also:
"Who
Is Swami Beyondananda?"
and
more
articles from the Swami
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