Meditation can lead to mindful perspective on our thoughts and lives. You get the right perspective on yourself and you can turn out to be pretty funny. We are quite used to marching out of the office to the kitchen to find that we can't remember why we left the office. We could bang our heads against the wall in frustration but instead some chuckles at our foibles work as well with less damage. We both find my translation of what was said using my poorer hearing can be funny.
Of course, too much chuckling, giggling and chortling can be annoying to others, especially if they don't themselves find anything around them funny. So, us merry senior souls have to filter our celebration of fun, tailoring it for social situations and civil acceptance. Sometimes, the sight of a 2 year old or of young lovers or a snowbank or a sunrise is simply so beautiful, so evocative of wonderful memories that we have to laugh in delight. At the very least, smile broadly.
The Wikipedia has this to say about laughter, in a longer and more complete article:
Children are known to laugh a great deal more than adults: an average baby laughs around 300 times a day compared to an average adult, who laughs only around 20 times a day;[citation needed] however this can depend on a person's personality. According to some studies, the onset of adulthood causes a gradual change characterized by increased seriousness and a diminished engagement in laughter.[5] Laughter is an audible expression or appearance of excitement, an inward feeling of joy and happiness. It may ensue from jokes, tickling, and other stimuli. Researchers have shown infants as early as 17 days old have vocal laughing sounds or laughter.[6] It conflicts with earlier studies indicating that infants usually start to laugh at about four months of age. Laughter researcher Robert Provine said: "Laughter is a mechanism everyone has; laughter is part of universal human vocabulary. There are thousands of languages, hundreds of thousands of dialects, but everyone speaks laughter in pretty much the same way." Babies have the ability to laugh before they ever speak. Children who are born blind and deaf still retain the ability to laugh.
Laughter is not always good, as the portion of the Wikipedia on "negative aspects" of laughter points out:
Laughter is not always a pleasant experience and is associated with several negative phenomena. Excessive laughter can lead to cataplexy, and unpleasant laughter spells, excessive elation, and fits of laughter can all be considered negative aspects of laughter. Unpleasant laughter spells, or "sham mirth," usually occur in people who have a neurological condition, including patients with pseudobulbar palsy, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. These patients appear to be laughing out of amusement but report that they are feeling undesirable sensations "at the time of the punch line." Excessive elation is a common symptom associated with manic-depressive psychoses and mania/hypomania. Those who suffer from schizophrenic psychoses seem to suffer the opposite—they do not understand humor or get any joy out of it. A fit describes an abnormal time when one cannot control the laughter or one's body, sometimes leading to seizures or a brief period of unconsciousness. Some believe that fits of laughter represent a form of epilepsy
Laughter is more of a social phenomenon than I thought. The irritating laugh track of a sit-com can get people laughing together, enjoying unity with the group, even when they don't feel there is anything funny going on.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
