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Let’s learn how to laugh about ourselves

Francisco Miraval

I was reading the news and I didn’t like what the story said: a Mexican teenager who grew up in the United States killed a Native couple in Montana because the daughter of the couple laughed at him. I will not provide any additional details of the story (you can easily find them if you want) because I prefer to talk about the effect a derisive laugh can generate.

I remember that in my early teens –I have no idea why– I wanted to know more about UFOs and the possibility of intelligent life on another planet. (After all, the possibility of intelligent life on this planet seems to be very remote.) I shared my desire with relatives, friends, and (What a horror!) even with people at church.

My desire of beginning investigating the “unknown” was met with a chorus of laughter I still can hear in my ears. In fact, so many people laughed at me that I realized I had only two options: either I had to take those laughs seriously and forget about my desires, or I have to take my desires seriously and forget about the laughs. (We will talk at a later time about what I have learned about UFOs during the past four decades.)

Then, at the end of my adolescence, I decided to write a book. I sat down with a pencil and a notebook (literally) and began to write. I was on the second page when somebody saw me and laughed at me. Since then, I never completed that book, or any other book.

And one day I announced I wanted to study philosophy and that, after getting my degree, I would spend the rest of my life dedicated to philosophy. The unending laughter that ensued came from two groups: those who thought I was crazy and those who were sure that was the case.

Almost three decades and five degrees later, I don’t hear those laughs anymore. I think it is because of my age and because of cultural changes. But I am sure people are still laughing internally and trying to suppress their laugh.

A quarter of a century ago I announced I have received a job offer in the United States and I would accept it. This time, mocking laugh was followed bets about how long I will last in the United States before returning penniless and defeated to my native country.

And two decades ago I said to a group of Friends I wanted to write as a way to create my livelihood. I still remember those “friends” and their deafening laughs. Twenty years and 9000 stories later, I can only imagine how much they would laugh if I could ever tell them I want to study transhumanism (to understanding it, not because I share it.) 

What have I learned from all those experiences? That it’s true what they say Thomas More once said, “Blessed are those who learn to laugh at themselves, because they will lack entertainment.”

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