Come on, admit it. You fell for this and then smiled after you said it.
In our world today with Covid-19 having taken so many and threatening every one of us, our divided country of Trumpers and Bidenites, global warming largely untended and millions of hungry, what have we got to smile about?
Well, everything really! If we haven't yet learned that a smile, a laugh or light-heartedness of any kind has a sanctifying place in creating a coping mentality and staying sane, then we are doomed. The human spirit will always be there, deep down, even as it strays far from the surface many times. We can't laugh when we cry, but we can and do survive long-term because that's just what we do.
Tip from my daughter--the same one who urged me to loudly say "Marco!" in a supermarket aisle and listen for someone within hearing distance to return "Polo!"-- try honking when sitting in your car in a parking deck and wait for a return. My record is two out of five tries... and a couple of odd looks.
When times are dark we often have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and look for a stress buster. Life always has its ups and downs. The ups when we are happy, the downs to tell the difference.
I had a friend who was bipolar. When he was down, he was really down. But when he was up, he was almost euphoric. He told me that he had found peace with medication but it came with a cost. The medication "leveled him out," in his words. He never dipped so low that he had dire thoughts... but he also never reached the joy of living he sought. "Life for me, " he said, "was one even path down the middle without notable highs or lows... and it sucked in its own way."
So I looked for some sage advice on life and found it in a most unusual place. Monty Python had a brilliant movie that told it all.
If you were born later, you may never have known the Monty Python experience. The Pythons, as they referred to themselves, had an almost 'cult-like' following until they all started dying, damn-it. They first shared their incredible sketch comedy on Britain's BBC in 1969 and hit the big screen 10 years later with award-winning Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Then there was Life of Brian followed by The Meaning of Life.
Blogger's Hint: if you haven't seen any of these, you haven't yet lived. I loved them all but perhaps The Meaning of Life was my fave. They were absurd and they were great.
The Meaning of Life consists of five different brief stories including the lead story's feature song, "Every Sperm is Sacred." And if that doesn't give you a hint, then you wouldn't go very far on "Jeopardy." (Note: I've got this song and that whole story on an earlier blog post here.)
This blog post is about balancing our stress-filled lives with a dash of perspective, done lightly as an example. So here are the lyrics to Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," written by Python member Eric Idle, to cheer you up... or not:
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment