The Horrors - Charles Demers - Laughin' It All Away

 

Comedian-author Charles Demers offers his madcap perspective in a new essay collection exploring all things awful. (Charlie Cho) 

Joni Mitchell's song People's Parties/Same Situation, with the lyric, " laughing and crying it's the same release" it's very true, but fact is, laughing is a whole lot more fun than crying. Laughing in the face of our own difficulties or finding the humour in tragedy is important, and even an essential coping strategy for life.

In my family we had to face a myriad of problems. Nothing so funny about things like death, disease and heartbreak, on the surface, but keeping a proactive and strong sense of  humour, makes all the difference to our mental health, our outlook, and can give us connection and relief from the seriousness, and we can come out from under the burdensome weight of it all, even if it's for a short period of time or is temporary.

I've learned humour is one of those three legs that keeps us upright in the chair of life. The other two are humility, and a love for humanity.

Charlie Demers has also obviously learned this lesson and in his interview he explains this in his book The Horrors, which he talked about this morning during an interview on the Current .

Many kids that grow up in difficult situations learn that humor helps immeasurably early on, and they develop a dark sense of humour. Some people might not get this, but others who have had similar experiences growing up, they completely get it. I completely get Charlie Demers, and Joni Mitchell.