Humour

If people cry at weddings why should they not laugh at funerals? If the person who has died made them laugh when he/she was alive, then laughter is a very proper way of commemorating them.

We find all sorts of things funny because humour is not just a way of expressing jollity, it is also a way of dealing with pain and suffering. This is why the trenches of the first world war bred so many jokes. This is why the emancipated inhabitants of countries lately under the yoke of the Soviet empire have stopped laughing so much.

All sorts of things make us laugh. But do you ever laugh at the Cosmos? Why would you do that?

Here’s an extract from Vedprakash Sharma’s blog. He’s a teacher in Delhi with a taste for music. He says:

You laugh at the whole situation as it is. The whole situation, as it is, is absurd — no purpose in the future, no beginning in the beginning. The whole situation of Existence is such that if you can see the Whole — such a great infinite vastness moving toward no fixed purpose, no goal — laughter will arise. So much is going on without leading anywhere; nobody is there in the past to create it; nobody is there in the end to finish it. Such is whole Cosmos — moving so beautifully, so systematically, so rationally. If you can see this whole Cosmos, then a laughter is inevitable.

He goes on to tell a very charming story about three Buddhist monks, and the funeral of one of them. Read it here.

There’s a lot of eco-angst out there as the banks go bust and the economy takes on the aspect of a clown car. At times like this I thought bankers threw themselves out of windows, the useless idiots. What’s stopping them?

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. House prices are freefalling and prospective first-time buyers are revving their chequebooks.

Spare a thought for sellers as they mourn their lost equity, poor wee thingies.

Message to sellers: there’s always someone worse off than yourself. Yes, really. Like people who have sell a house after someone’s been murdered in it. Nothing depresses prices like notoriety.

To people at this disadvantage I can recommend this blog. It’s a testament to the power of positive thinking, full of good tips. Here’s one:

When a potential buyer reports being upset about the fact that a person was murdered and the body thrown into the closet, comment instead about the ample space inside the closet; how there’s lots of room for shoes and accessories.

Here’s another:

A negative comment concerning how no one responded to the victim’s screams can be answered by showing how much privacy there is in the home and how playing loud music is unlikely to disturb the neighbors.

With undimmable optimism, our blogger even proposes a Plan B in the event of insuperable reluctance among buyers:

Rent the death house to a family of Satanists so they can improve their social standing amongst other devil worshippers.

In general, positive thinking is delusional. It can’t conquer cancer; it can’t even find you a parking space.

It may well, though, be efficacious in the littler matter of selling your house. Make up a murder. Demonstrate how that highlighted its best features. You may even get all your equity back.