Circling Laughter

We are all running in circles. Our history, our fashion, our experiences, even our emotions are traveling, not in a linear path, but a path that leads only to the beginning. A path producing so much centripetal force that it draws us in, almost against our will.

I woke up a few days ago, laughing histerically. It was laughter without reason; beyond joking, beyond cynicism. I tell you this, not because I want you to make the normal assumption of insanity or pills, but because of the exact opposite. I recall a Czech philosopher that once said, "a man laughs to escape the world; [even if its for a brief moment]." Unopposed, I continued this cycle of "meaningless" laughter throughout my entire day.

In the midst of my hilarious escape, I left all personal logic and emotion behind. Within a brief second, I realized something about myself: I am lonely; because of this, I create this constant internal need to be in a relationship even if I completely despise the person. These are both things that I've understood about myself from previous experience. But, what sets this apart from every other self-incounter is the realization of my result: I will continue on my circular path of self-critisim and disappointment until my entire being consists of only these two aspects.

Kundera labels this state-of-being "Litost". Let me give a brief explanation: Litost is "a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery." We then, as humans, create two options for ourselves to escape: either, the counterpart involved in the sight of our torment is weaker and we therefore find an excuse to hit them, or they are stronger and all we can do is choose circuitous revenge--"murder by means of suicide". For example: "A child [deliberately] plays a wrong note on his violin over and over until the teacher goes mad and throws him out the window. As he falls, the child is delighted by the thought that the nasty teacher will be charged with murder."

So what happens when we decide neither of these tactics? Do we constantly wallow in self-pity until we go absolutely mad and jump off the nearest pedestrian bridge? Well, yes and no. Speaking from experience, I believe we touch the line between sanity and instability. But something better exists as an outcome: while we are teetering between normality and the "big white jacket" we have lost all control of ourselves. And at this moment, all we can do is scream for something/someone to help us. At this moment, we are forced to rely upon something greater than ourselves.

Now, I am at the Charles Bridge, looking out into the landscape I see a river, a castle and I find myself at a "crossroad" or connecting point between two circles. The first is to give into my personal litost and smite revenge on everyone involved in my torment which will only continue my cycle of criticism and disappointment and the second, give up all control, accept my torment for what it is and pray to God that I don't jump off that bridge.

By choosing the latter, I laugh even harder. I want to escape this state and yet I chose to embrace it. At this moment, from the corner of my eye, I notice someone approaching. As they see me, they jump back about a foot, wide-eyed and nervous they wave to me and I wave back. Who is this person? I have no idea; in fact, the only real look I was able to get was a view of his hand. As he walks away, I continue to slowly recognize who this person is. By the time I have a guess, he is halfway across Prague and I will never see him again.

So what importance does this story carry? This was my closure, the ending of my dreadful litost. The beauty of it; I had no authority in it, no revenge by any means. And for myself, solely, I made a cycle old and a cycle new.

We all are running in circles. But we have a choice in which one we follow.