Let your laughter fill me like a bell.
I have long believed that you rise up or fall down to the level of your best group text.
This is not a novel idea; many a reasonable and unreasonable philosopher have made some gesture or another in this direction.
I heard the sentiment expressed most recently again this weekend, at a celebration marked by the kind of “these are the people I will have time for even when I have no time” guest list that makes everyone a co-conspirator in each other’s lives, even if they might never individually or otherwise overlap.
It is not enough, though it is necessary, to be able to revel in the joys and successes of the people you say you love. Nor is it enough, though it is arguably even more necessary, to be aware of and empathetic to their travails.
I would argue that the bar is to find ways to add to their joy and to reduce their suffering, regardless of whether they will ever know it. Some people are brilliant at doing this on individual, interpersonal levels; some, by always, always working to make everything around them better, operate within (or despite) systems.
These two kinds of people need other, and their collaborations are the ones that propel change and the willingness and ability to imagine — and then to create — a better present.
Nihilism is the easy way out.
Attribution
Make me laugh over coffee, make it a double, make it frothy so it seethes in our delight. Make my cup overflow with your small happiness. I want to hoot and snort and cackle and chuckle. Let your laughter fill me like a bell. Let me listen to your ringing and singing as Billie Holiday croons above our heads. Sorry, the blues are nowhere to be found. Not tonight. Not here. from In the Company of Women by January Gill O’Neil