Laughing

The following piece is from a chapter about the variety of paths available to us to find our true selves. Steinem says, "Each of us has an inner compass that helps us know where to go and what to do. Its signals are interest, excitement, the joy of understanding for its own sake, and the sort of fear that is a sign of being in new territory--and therefore of growth. ("Feel the fear," as psychologist Susan Jeffers says, "and do it anyway.") Honoring and following these internal signals is itself the beginning of the journey. There are many paths leading to same destination, like the spokes of a wheel leading to the hub. Some of us are running around on the rim, the outer edge of the wheel, because we haven't chosen a path to the center. Some are taking one path while others have decided on other paths. Whichever path or combination of paths you choose, i.e., yoga, mediation, keeping a journal, sports, service, singing, painting, or dream interpretation, trust your responses and you will find your way to your true self, your passion, your purpose, and your self-esteem.

In this piece, Steinem extols the path of laughter.

"When we see how funny we are, we see how dear we are." --Anne Wilson Schaef

Think of the feeling of laughter--helpless laughter. It starts in the mind, spreads irresistibly to the body, and involves the whole self. It drives out other thoughts as surely as an orgasm, more surely than sleep--and can be as restorative as either. Laughter has many poor relations: smiles that ingratiate or deceive; giggling at our own embarrassment or at someone else's expense; grinning with victory or defiance; chuckling with appreciation; smirking with prurience; simpering with need for approval--and many more. But only laughter is something you "burst into" with complete spontaneity. Sleep can be induced, even an orgasm can be faked--but not a good laugh. False laughter just isn't convincing. It can't be planned or even predicted, coerced or compelled. It just is: a flash of recognition; a moment of perfect balance between inner and outer worlds; a fast dip into the unconscious that the whole self revels in. In many cultures, laughter means health, balance, self-acceptance, even a flash of cosmic joy. Often, the absence of laughter and humor is a sign of mental and emotional illness. Those who are stuck in the inner worlds may become severely depressed and a danger to themselves, while those who live only in the outer world may be psychopaths and a danger to others, but neither can let inner and outer worlds meet and produce the contradictions that create laughter. Students of physical illness have learned that laughter can be literally health-giving. Even limited experiments in which one group of patients watched a laughter-inspiring film and another group did not have shown that the immune systems of the first group became measurably stringer for a periods of hours afterward. Laughing also calls up endorphins, the body's natural shields against pain, with none of the side effects that artificial painkillers bring with them (for instance, suppression of protective cells that impede the growth of tumors). Norman Cousins, who was a modern-day prophet of laughter, discovered its beneficial effects during a long and life-threatening illness.

A few minutes of laughter gave him a few hours of pain-free sleep without medications and strengthened his body's ability to fight beyond medical predictions. He lived fifteen years after that illness: more than long enough to write about his experience, persuade many hospitals to include humor, films and literal "living rooms" in their medical programs, and to see hid controversial theories confirmed. In 1989, the staid "Journal of the American Medical Association" published this conclusion from a Swedish study: "A humor therapy program can improve the quality of life for patients Laughter has an immediate symptom-relieving effect." Like any expression of the true self, laughter is radical and revolutionary, and it upsets conformity. As Robin Morgan explained in "The Dream Lover": "When you try to stifle laughter, it just gets worse, It gurgles and bubbles and rises until you're ready to explode with it--like in church or in a judge's chambers or in a business meeting You can gulp back tears if necessary. You can certainly swallow words you know will get you into trouble if you speak them. You can grind your teeth and not cry out in pain. But there's no way to swallow laughter, real laughter." I say all this to convince you that there such a thing as a path of laughter. As far as we know, it is unique to human beings--a flash of consciousness, a clue to who we are.

From Gloria Steinem's "Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem," Little,

Brown and Company, 1993.