We all need to laugh wherever we find ourselves

Gordie Jackson
2 min readFeb 23, 2018

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Photo by Belle Maluf on Unsplash

I rejoice that I have reached the weekend. Not sure what it was about the week but it was more a toil than usual. Yet perspective comes as the images flash across the screens of the injured in Damascus. One evening I watch young children blooded the next I see children in a refuge playing a game. What can children do when adults make decisions that threaten their lives? Play.

It is not easy being a child in an adult world. Many decisions are made that you can do nothing about other than play. I can learn from these children. I can learn that despite decisions made I can play. As an adult that may be singing my hymns into YouTube or getting carried away in the moment.

I did some crazy things in my youth on one occasion jumping off the board in the local swimming pool with all my clothes on. On other occasions at swimming pool parties, I seem to lose all my clothes. Mad it may have seemed but it brought out the outrageous in a humorous way.

I recall on one occasion Ron Ricco a hypnotist visited our town. We would get a circus, the odd fair and Ron Ricco to shake us from our otherwise mundane lives. I went forward with the many and to my surprise, I remained on stage while most others disappeared.

I recall every minute of it. I am still amazed that I could do what he said. Acting Madonna singing and dancing to, ‘Like a Virgin’ is the primary memory. What I learned that night was that if people thought I was hypnotised I could do things I would never do due to self- consciousness.

I have employed that thinking when I have needed to give myself a confidence boost.

Whatever we are going through and there are incomparable extremes we need something to laugh in the face of fear. I sometimes feel guilty about my worries when I see the children of Syria but then I remind myself like the plants wherever we are we have needs in order that we grow as we should. Hence even in war children have the need to play.

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Gordie Jackson

Speaks with a Northern Irish accent, lives in Hertfordshire, England.