On January 11th, 2016, I started a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to have some accountability. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Meditation for August 13th
Laugh At Yourself
So many people walk this earth taking everything seriously. They see a world that is happening to them rather than just absurdly happening. They think there is meaning to their suffering, or worse, meaning to their successes. They are in the stage as the main star of the play rather than just a piece of a bigger production.
To survive in this world, one has to laugh. We are absurd creatures who like things that aren’t important. We believe that concepts and values hold some significance as we pursue our careers. We believe in justice for wrongdoing and a fair life, but unfortunately, it isn’t. All we can do is laugh at it. We need to make fun of all this folly.
We are funny. We can see the ridiculousness in others, but we struggle to recognize our lunacy. Sometimes we refuse to admit that we are total weirdos. We were given the gift of laughter, and that gift was to cut through the meaninglessness that is life. While some hold on to afterlives and reincarnation, we can’t ever know that will happen, and this might be the one shot, so we have to giggle at the preposterousness.
We are so scared of being who we are. Laughing at ourselves is a pure tool that allows us to be our authentic selves. Laughter is the great humbler. Without seeing our own comedy, we are riddled with the sickness we call ego. We disguise ourselves in fashion, fake personas just so no one will see the scared little shit we are. We can’t just listen to a genre of music; we have to dress like we do.
No one cares who you are anyway. Your real friends and family will want you to be happy, and being yourself is the key to that happiness. So your successes and failures won’t shake the true ones away; look to them and laugh with them at your life. They will become closer when you can share that kind of realness.
The very idea that someone is thinking negatively about us or doesn’t like some aspect of our interests or looks can make us lose sleep, lose our appetites, or even make us lose our minds. We should laugh at the idea that we would take anyone else’s opinion of us seriously. They will die, we will die, and everyone else will die, and the end of the universe will more than likely be millions and millions of years from this tiny moment we existed, so why take it seriously?
In 1980, Muhammad Ali surpassed President Abraham Lincoln, Christ, and Napoleon as the most written about person in history. Do you think you are serious enough to be more interesting than them? Nah, you aren’t, and neither am I.
Stop. Look at yourself. See the absurdity of it all. See that you don’t put so much stock in silly things for the short time you are alive. Laugh. Be goofy. Talk to cute animals with funny voices.
Laugh at yourself. Laugh at the ego-centric disguises you are hiding behind. Laugh at your absurdities. Laugh at how you do things like other people so that you don’t look alone.
Laugh or have no meaning in your life.
Prayer
Dear Mr. Albert Camus,
First off, you are hot and make me want to pick up smoking again,
Help me stop being rational,
In an irrational Universe.
While supernaturalists will cry God is the meaning,
We can’t ever know that is true,
Even with the most faith,
There will always be a little doubt,
And I have a lot of doubt with no faith,
So I have to find the Absurdity of life to be my meaning,
For without laughter,
I will go mad.
Thank you,
For we must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Craft
Scrapbooking is the best craft to celebrate the Absurdity. You will need scissors, a scrapbook, and adhesive. You can get more precise tools, but don’t get all obsessed and then stop after a few days. Start with the basics, and then you can graduate to the high-end stuff.
You’ll want to capture the things in your life that are absurd: diary entries, news articles, and anything else that will remind you that none of this makes any sense at all.
You will want to revisit this scrapbook when you think life is something to be taken seriously.
Goal
Don’t take life so seriously; it’s not taking you seriously at all.