Look, who is smiling!

"Hey, that's funny, why don't you come with us?" Let us attend the royal feast.

"Oh! I can't smile, no…no… that plastic smile I can't" she replied.

I have heard that Stoics, emphasizing self-control never laughs at all. Plato, the most influential critic of laughter, treated laughter as the malicious Guardians of the state that overrides rationality should avoid laughter. Plato was disturbed by the passages of the Iliad and the Odyssey where Mount Olympus was said to ring with the laughter of the gods. He protested that "if anyone represents men of worth as overpowered by laughter, must not accept it, much less if gods." And so I was distressed by my sister's above remark.

Though she was a political science teacher and an avid watcher of political events on T.V. happening this was an eventual shock for me because I, myself, squeeze a laugh from any kind of incident, and that too with a thunderous wild roar. A laugh is just like sunshine that drives my clouds away and my soul grows with its music. But here is my sister she wants to avoid royal gatherings because she does not like to smile.

It is this ubiquity that makes people develops their style. Some can laugh and guffaw loud while others tend to giggle and laugh discreetly. We, human beings, are hardwired to be funny and only being in this planet that struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

When I look at myself, I suppose, I am suffering from a Pseudo-bulbar or Cataplectic attack which occurs spontaneously, with no exclusive emotional trigger— a sudden uncontrollable and inappropriate laughing, so to say. A few years ago on a certain occasion, everyone in the staff-room was laughing, but I burst out in whirlpool of laughing. Teachers in the room turned and stared at me and then one Zoology Prof. looked at me and declared "That… that was the most beautiful instinctive releases of animal spirits that of a Punjabi genes." However, sometimes humour on one's shortcomings or behavior increases self-acceptance and makes us healthy, so I was happy with the remark. I have heard that even horses quit their pulling' when the driver doesn't smile.

Aristotle agreed with Plato that laughter expresses scorn…. he warns that … a jest is a kind of mockery, and lawgivers forbid some kinds of jesting. Perhaps Aristotle knew that laughter often gives birth to foul discourse which leads to railing and insult, to blows and wounds and to slaughter and murder. Who does not know the story of the Mahabharata? A satirical laugh and, lo! a battle of eighteen days—loss of an infinite number of lives!

Friends! One laughs when one falls into the abyss of absurdity. In the silent movies of Charlie Chaplin, the hero is often trapped in a situation where he looks doomed. But then he escapes with a clever acrobatic stunt that one would not have thought of, much less been able to perform and we laugh.

Sigmund Freud analyses three laughter situations:  "jokes"  "the comic," and "humour." In all three, laughter releases nervous energy or our unconscious desire. So, one goes on to pronounce "clown prince" instead of "crown prince" and the laughter vent out with surplus desire.

There is a story told by Mark Twain in which his brother was building a road when a charge of dynamite went off prematurely, blowing him high into the sky. When the poor man came down far from the work site, he was docked half a day's pay for being "absent from his place of employment." In laughing at this story, he says, we are releasing the psychic energy that we had summoned to feel pity for Twain's brother.

Though, today almost no scholar explains laughter or humor as a process of releasing pent-up nervous energy. The cause of humorous laughter is said to be the "two or more inconsistent, unsuitable, or incongruous parts or circumstances, considered as united in one complex object or assemblage, as acquiring a sort of mutual relation from the peculiar manner in which the mind takes notice of them" conflict between what is perceived and what is thought. What is enjoyed is incongruity, the violation of our mental patterns and expectations".

Kant illustrates this with this story:

An Indian at the table of an Englishman in Surat saw ale bottle opened and it turned into froth and overflowing, testified his great astonishment with many exclamations. When the Englishman asked him, "What is there in this to astonish you so much?" he answered, "I am not at all astonished that it should flow out, but I do wonder how you ever got it in."

When someone had declared that he was fond of walking alone, an Austrian said to him: "You like walking alone; so do I: therefore we can go together.

The tragic and the comic are the same, in so far as both are based on contradiction; but the tragic is the suffering contradiction, the comical, the painless contradiction…one starts with something so simple and ends with something so paradoxical even then one is not frightened by absurd play of emotion.

In our logic classes, we have learned how the reductio ad absurdum offers a handy rejoinder to imply the significant inferential errors, question-begging nonsense, etc., sometimes outright laughable one's argument. This was not a typical eureka moment that happened in a flash but built up through deep thought at par with a lawyer arguing in the court and it worked!

Perhaps my sister had this existential awareness so she refused to attend the royal party. She does not want to give a friendly smile to anyone whom she does not know because. It is a very complex behavior and is often linked to circumstances that are dubious. It happens when a triggering situation simultaneously activates different and opposing drives. In these cases, instead of smiling, the individual reacts differently: one shows only one's teeth and emits a very strong sound, as the receptionist does as soon as you approach her or the air hostess does when one enters an airplane, when an actor laughs or smiles following the context of the scripts or one finds emoji-s smile for ever— but, that is all occupational smile.

Laughter can take on an ambiguous meaning. In adults, laughter, especially the very loud and sarcastic ones, can become a gesture of threat or mockery towards someone. In teenagers, it is very clear when one group threatens another by mocking it, as happens in cases of bullying. The facial expressions, though non-verbal communication, are considered questioning in character.  It can be a smile, grin, and smirk. They can be genuine or forced.

The facial expression for a smile is formed when any individual raises the corners of their mouth happily. Some individuals give a wide smile with lips open and teeth visible, whereas some give a decent smile by just raising the corners of their lips. Among humans, a smile expresses delight, sociability, happiness or joy, or amusement. Although cross-cultural studies have shown that smiling is a means of communication yet throughout the world there are large differences also among the different cultures, religions, and societies. Royal people often hold back their smile, one never forgets the enigmatic smile of famous Monalisa, though beneath these barriers lie an infinite ability to laugh excessively which again is regarded as vulgar by Bharat Muni of Natyashastra.

Often lack of time, unfulfilled desires, stress, and frustration restrain us. When I go to the market some of the regular visitors wave their hands with a smile. I too greet them with a pleasant smile, but when I failed to do that I regret heavily in mind.

Fiends! Thus, analyzing a smile is like dissecting a frog and lo! it dies soon. Unfortunately, no one is interested in it. Similarly, a "comedy dies quickly under a microscope", since people love the whirlpool of maddening laughter unconditionally. 

 

Amen!