Gratitude 56

I am grateful for the gift of laughter.  There are many different kinds of laughter: delight, pleasure, sarcasm and irony, outrage, shock. joy, to name a few.  They all come in handy, they are all therapeutic, they all provide us with the sweetest release.  I am thinking today of the importance of laughter when dealing with difficult situations and horrible people.

To put it another way, I have decided to use laughter in order to cope with the Great Deplorable in the Oval Office, President Dump.  I really don't know how else I'm going to cope.  We are going to be stuck with him for the next four years, barring divine intervention.

There is something invigorating about laughter.  Laughter is empowering.  We laugh sometimes when we are afraid, but it can also embolden us.  It can make us unafraid.  I am thinking of a song of protest by an Argentinian-Mexican musician.  It is in Spanish and the words are "Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo." Or, they are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them."  It is a very powerful song to sing in protest marches where there are riot police ready to smash heads in (been there).  Here is a link to the song if you wish to play it while reading this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2K9sNrl5EM

It is by Liliana Felipe.

I am thinking here of the power of humour. laughter, joy and celebration against tyrants despots and dumb horrible billionaire presidents who couldn't govern their way out of a wet paper bag.  That's right.  El Dump, or el presidente Dump, the Great Deplorable in the Oval Office.  I realize now that when I first referred to him as the Dump, when his election was confirmed it was already my early start on using humour to cope with the intolerable.

Till now, I have not been able to endure the sound of his awful voice on the radio news and have been inclined to turn off the radio then phone in a complaint to the CBC.  I have decided that this has actually given the ugly reality of the Dump power over me.  Instead, I am going to let the imbecile rant on, while laughing my head off at him because he is not at all worth taking seriously.

I am also trying to visualize a photo I have seen of him trying to clench his fist as a symbol of strength and defiance.

Yes, that useless little thing at the end of his sleeve is a fist, or something that resembles a fist.  It is the feeble effort of the Short-Fingered Vulgarian to look tough.  That tiny little hand that couldn't punch its way out of a wet paper bag.  It has likely lifted many forks and spoons to his cake hole but what you see here is anything but a man who could be thought of as tough or strong.

When we laugh at power we are disempowering power and empowering ourselves.  Yes, they can still make our lives miserable.  But we are going to keep on laughing at them, because despots are not able to laugh at themselves.   Our joy, love and laughter make us stronger than the most brutal tyrant. They are never going to defeat us.