Laughter

Excerpted from a lengthy (and very crudely "adult," but intelligent) online post I read recently about one man's two-year stint in a prison.  One of the things he lists as being the best part about finally being out:

"Laughter 

"No one laughs inside. You might occassionally fake a laugh when someone does something stupid, or gets what they deserve. But inside you laugh at straight up irony. Nothing is really funny when you're locked in a concrete bunker with seemingly no hope of getting out. 

"When I went inside, my favourite things were horror movies and violent video games. But now I can't stand the thought of them. I've seen too much real violence for one life time. 

"Instead I've burned through three seasons of 30 Rock. I haven't laughed so hard in my entire life. I find myself laughing at s&%$ that a couple of years ago I would have been too jaded and cynical to laugh at, or thought that it wasn't cool to laugh at. Now I find myself cruising through Metacritic for the funniest films of the last two years. I liked to think that I used to be funny, but now, I realise I'm not. That I look in the mirror and there is this kind of grimness there. 

"So don't take laughter for granted. It can actually be taken away quite easily."