ALL IN ITS RIGHT PLACE
People say that “Its better to laugh than cry”. This is not entirely true. You can laugh so much as to bring tears in your eyes. Why do we laugh? Basically, to put things in their right places. Laughter can diminish fear and increase courage, can deviate death, extend life, reduce the effects of the most powerful enemy, dignify the poor, humiliate the tyrant, annul what seems important and what doesn’t seem much can become important.
Democritus, the Greek, used to laugh at gold and silver. He would say: “I laugh at people’s love for gold and silver”. Laughter puts things in their right places. It’s an almost non-natural human action – no other animal on earth can laugh. Conscience is above order, reason, rules and laws. Laughter is an outlaw, an arrow piercing logic.
If we laugh at what seems to be a reasonable motive for fearing and crying, if we laugh at a terminal disease and the closeness of death, if we laugh at HIV/AIDS, we will be able to overcome it. We will be able to turn it into a brief human experience and put it in its right place. There’s a character In a recent literary work: “The Name of the Rose”, who says: “Whoever laughs doesn’t love nor hate”. Who laughs creates doubts. Doubts force things to take their right places, even ourselves. Laughter makes humanity tall and small, cursed and blessed.
Caco Xavier
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
See the cartoons awarded by the technical jury