In the spirit of getting other people to write my posts for
me, here’s C to help us ponder why we don’t / can’t laugh the way we did when
we were young…
I'm not much of a laugh-out-loud type of person! - but oh I miss those helpless giggles that make your eyes water and your stomach ache and definitely seem to have disappeared with age - though very occasionally they do appear and when they do it feels so SO good. It's always the odd things that do that, abstract things somehow that tickle me, so humour in songs can fall a bit short and I do think it's a bit of an acquired taste. Having said that, your post straight away reminded me of one humour song that I've liked since first hearing it - sure you know it... From 1993 but (of course) still very much relevant today…
Ah yes, I had that one on CD single, C. I was a big fan of Dennis Leary back when he used to do those short, angry MTV videos. It was a more mainstream version of what Bill Hicks was doing, and it appealed to my Angry Young Man phase back in the early 90s.
I decided to do a bit of research into why I can’t laugh at
things like I used to, and I found an article in The
New York Post that says we start to lose our sense of humour at age 23! So
I reckon it’s long gone for most of us now.
Childhood is often carefree. Adulthood often isn’t. The
average 4-year-old, the authors write, laughs as many as 300 times a day. The
average 40-year-old will take two and a half months to log that many
chuckles.
Apparently having a job is one of the main reasons we stop
laughing so much. That, and all the added responsibilities of adulthood –
mortgage, bills, children et al.
August and The Spur of the Moment Band - The I-95 Asshole Song
The good news is, if we live long enough (and live far
enough into our retirement years to overcome the trauma of adulthood), this
chart suggests our ability to laugh will return…
I dunno… I look at my Mum. She doesn’t have a lot to laugh
about these days. Confined to the house, eyesight almost gone, scared to leave
her chair in case she has another fall, carers coming in to get her up in the
morning and put her to bed at night… as she approaches 100, I’m not sure she’s
laughing the way she did when she was 25. That said, my Mum’s always had a good
sense of humour, and the fact that she still has it at 97, despite all she has
to cope with… I think that’s amazing. I doubt I’ll be in such good spirits if
I’m lucky enough to live that long.
As the title of this series reminds us, laughter is great for our mental health. Can we get it back into our lives? The investigation continues…
