Tragedy and Comedy
Teymur Roshdi
Smashwords Edition
Copyright-2011-Teymur Roshdi
At birth we begin to cry. I don’t take into consideration the medical explanation of this such as a stimulus for the first breathes of the new born babies. I just consider it as a symbol, a sign that leaving the comfort of the mother womb is the beginning of a ‘tragedy’ and we continue crying as a new born baby, whatever our needs could be. I ask myself why we don’t laugh at birth? Laughing could be as well stimulating for the first breathes and for lungs function as the crying. It seems that only crying is an alert signal for the mother to worry and to take care about the needs of the baby. So I deduce that crying is a signal of unease and laughing is a signal of ease, comfort and joy.
Then why in animal life we don’t notice such a phenomenon? In mammals, the babies just moan or remain silent and everything follow its path. In other species either no sign of unease or complain. Why we human are the only kind who complain since birth? As if we already know that in the world it would be suffering, hardship and pain; diseases, sorrow, failure, but love and death.
Maybe laughing has been the only ‘gift’ offered to us as a safety ‘device’ to bear everything during our lifetime. And what is this laughter? This only relief for our human condition? It is just the ability to distort the reality which is too harsh and too hard for us, human, half animal and half something else. Laughter is made of the same stuff than the dreams. In dreams everything is distorted and I noticed that lot of mad people laugh all the times because everything is distorted in their mind. But nature’s laws are too serious and animals know it better than us. For animals there is no time and no opportunity for evasion into the dreams because at each moment and at each corner the predator is awaiting for them, there is no vacation in nature, no rest and no peace, it is a perpetual struggle, challenge to protect themselves and to avoid the predator. Do animals dream? I wonder and if so about what? For example the cats, our familiar pets spend lot of time in sleep, do they dream?
This human condition has been treated by the most famous poets and authors of antiquity among Greeks most of all already since 2500 years ago. Still in ancient Greece the majority of authors were focused in writing tragedies such as Sophocle, Aeshyle, Euripide and lot of others. While few were expert in writing comedies such as Arisophanes. What is the reason of that? Is it because life or human condition is a ‘tragedy’ in itself? Or because mankind is a mourning creature? So if mankind is essentially a sad, mourning creature, why then as ‘they say’ it is the only one able to laugh?
But why do some people look always at the ‘dark side’ of life, while some others see just the ‘bright side’ of everything? And lot of other ones consider ‘wisely’ the both sides?
Medical scientists say that all the human emotions are the result of the interactions between the chemical substances in the brain which cause our moods, our biological rhythm and so on. Consequently some people are sad and depressed by nature, by genetics and some others, joyful and happy in all circumstances.
Again in ancient Greece, many philosophers tried to formulate an ‘ethics’ for human to follow in order to keep themselves in balance in front of any misfortune and disaster. For example Zenon and his stoic followers opted for indifference in all circumstances, given they were out of their control. They were trained to keep a ‘plain face’ in front of poverty, illness, loss and death. The epicurians or the false epicurians opted for the search of pleasure despite of everything, knowing that ‘life is short’ and death is awaiting at each moment and at each corner, so better to spend this span joyfully (in fact this was not the teaching of Epicurus).
For all living creatures, starving and thirst are the worst to suffer, the animals just nurture themselves as in a self-service restaurant by devouring the weakest animals. But what did Socrates in the times of penury of food in Athenes? He suggested to his disciples to tie up strongly their waist in order to decrease the stomach and to entertain themselves with the philosophy. Are we able to survive just with philosophy?
Nature is serious and natural selection is its law, even though our ‘civilized societies’ seem ‘flexible’ and friendly, but it has the same laws than nature, this is the key of the ecosystem and the key of the survival, the least transgression, the least false step can eradicate us, we can laugh, we can enjoy things but we can’t escape the laws.
July 29/2011