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  • The arguments for approaching life in a grave, serious and unsmiling mood are overwhelming:

  • we are clearly a profoundly wicked species, we continually perpetrate monstrous suffering

  • on one another, our greed and viciousness know no bounds, our minds are fickle and largely

  • out of control, no one gets through existence unscathed and everyday is bad untileventually

  • the worst of all happens. The only people one could imagine smiling through this kind

  • of horror show would be the still-too innocent or the actively deluded.

  • And yet, one of the odder-sounding conclusions we might reach, after having had our fill

  • of every kind of awfulness, is that there might still be a way to live light-heartedly

  • amidst catastrophe, not because we don't knowabout the unjustified pain, the miserable

  • errors and the imperfection of everythingbut precisely because we do; because we

  • know it all so so well and have had enough of ruminating on despair, a stance of defiance

  • towards difficulty that draws its energy from full and over-intimate acquaintance with it.

  • This is the laughter that comes not when one has never really cried but when one has cried

  • for years, when every pretty hope has been trampled on, when one has made some properly

  • dreadful mistakes and been repaid amply for themand when one has fully considered

  • ending it all, but then decidedat the last momentto keep going, not because

  • of anything one can expect of oneself, not because one holds on to any standard belief

  • in a good life, but becauseamidst the shitshowone can't help but notice that

  • the sky is a delightful azure blue, that there's a Bach cello concerto to listen to and that

  • there's a sweet four year old holding on to her mother's hand asking how ducks sleep

  • at night. And so despite everything, the loneliness, the shame, the compromise, the self-hatred

  • and the sure knowledge that the agony isn't over yet, one turns to the light and says

  • a big rebellious obstinate joyful yes to the universe (which naturally doesn't give a

  • damn). Sometimes well-meaning people try to get others

  • to cheer up by by telling them that they are beautiful, that they deserve good things and

  • that they have a share of the divine in them. Bless such efforts and those for whom they

  • work, but for the rest of us, there might be another way, this based not on sentimental

  • bromides but on staring down the darkness and refusing to let it terrify us. We might

  • build ourselves up by accepting with grace that, naturally and non-negotiably, we are

  • total idiots, others are mostly horrid and almost nothing ever really comes right

  • and yet we're going to keep at it anyway. We become the sort of people who understand

  • that rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic would not have been a waste of time, because

  • of how nice the band would have sounded and how much time there really was, all things,

  • considered, before the icy waters started to lap at one's black tie trousers and how

  • crucial it was to let those last joyful notes ring out in the clear arctic night.

  • What lies behind this light-hearted approach isn't naivety, it's the lightness that

  • comes from registering every kind of heaviness and transcending it. We can pick up on what's

  • distinctive in this attitude by comparing two masterpieces of art, one by Velazquez,

  • painted in 1632, depicting the most sorrowful moment in the Christian history of the world,

  • the other by made in 1979 by Monty Python, showing us the crucifixion of a non-descript

  • everyman with a truculent determination not to bemoan his fate unduly.

  • Velazquez is classically tragic, but Monty Python's closing song brazenly tackles the

  • business of dying on a cross and plays it for laughs: 'Life's a piece of shit, when

  • you look at it'. Instead of plunging us further into feelings of sorrow, the mood

  • is mocking and utterly committed to refusing gloom: 'Always look on the bright side of

  • lifepurse your lips and give a whistle'. This strategy of defiance insists on squaring

  • up to the grimness, and then asserting control over it through mordant dryness. In the Middle

  • Ages, a tradition arose of condemned people on the scaffold turning to the crowd and making

  • a witticism about their situation. Commenting on this gallows humour, Freud recounted a

  • man being led out to be hung at dawn saying, 'Well, the day is certainly starting well.'

  • One aristocrat in the French Revolution, on being ushered up to the guillotine (then a

  • brand-new high-tech killing machine), looked up at its complicated workings and asked,

  • 'Are you sure this is safe?' Rather than being slowly gnawed at by sideways glances

  • at the truth, the gallows humorist insists that they will not be silenced by it, they

  • roll their sleeves up, grab it tenaciously and remove its sting through comedy.

  • True light-heartedness begins with an appreciation of one's utter cosmic unimportance and nullity:

  • nothing we have ever done, said or thought matters in any way. It's only the monstrous

  • illusions of our ego which give us an impression that we count, and then torture us that we

  • don't count enough. Furthermore, no one will ever particularly understand us or love

  • us properlyand that isn't a personal curse, but an iron-clad fact of nature we

  • would do well to stop kicking against and to be constantly disappointed by. Everything

  • we deeply want either will not happen or will be unsatisfying when it does. We must stop

  • crying as if any of it really mattered or there ever was another way. We must pity ourselves

  • and then change tack. The tragic view is obvious. Being miserable is the default. Everything

  • makes very little sense. Now let's surprise ourselves with a little irresponsible laughter,

  • the kind it can take a lifetime of sorrow to perfect.

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The arguments for approaching life in a grave, serious and unsmiling mood are overwhelming:

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如何更輕鬆地生活? (How to Live in a More Lighthearted Way)

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    Annie Huang 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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