There are lots of ways to discover things about a person, some more intrusive and less legal than others, depending on who you are—fingerprints, dna samples, retina scans, or the simple observation of whether or not they wear argyle socks.
But a person’s laugh? It’s possibly the cheapest, quickest personality test available, and often a dead giveaway of exactly what kind of person you’re dealing with.
Laughter is a wordless language that speaks volumes. You can learn a lot about someone by what makes them laugh, and by the taste (yes, taste) of their laughter.
Say you meet someone who is sporting the aforementioned argyle socks. Say you point at them and laugh. (We don’t advise pointing, pointing is rude.) But if seeing the socks makes you laugh, do you laugh in delight? Or in derision? There’s a difference in both the shapes your face makes and in the sound that comes out of it. You know it does.
If it is the former, perhaps the delight is that you, too, are also wearing argyle socks and, after pointing, you raise your pants a bit and grin to show your new acquaintance your solidarity?
If it is the latter, however, a laugh of derision, perhaps it is because seeing those socks makes you somehow uncomfortable. Perhaps you were taught that argyle socks were bad, or perhaps you had nightmares about evil argyle socks as a child. We don’t know. But you obviously have some aversion to argyle socks and want to make sure that anyone around knows you consider argyle socks a poor fashion choice and don’t want to have anything to do with anyone who would wear them.
Laughter has flavors, more than all the kinds of flavors you can imagine. And there are a lot of things you can taste, but they aren’t all good. Some things taste pleasant, like the sweetness of ice cream or carrots (though possibly not together), and some things are better left untouched, like poison ivy. Your body will tell you pretty instantly that was a bad thing to lick. And just like putting your tongue to ice cream, your ears can taste the flavor of the laughter and know it’s good.
We recommend laughter that tastes of delight and joy and camaraderie, and of jokes that make you snort bubbles out of your nose in spontaneous explosions of hilarity. (Bubbles are often a good sign.) We recommend the flavors that laugh “with” and not “at,” laughter that offers everyone in earshot a taste of happiness.
And do you know how you tell? The litmus test for laughter is lightness. Because, like Willy Wonka’s “Fizzy Lifting Drinks” or floating Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins, the best kind of laughter lifts people up from the inside. (We told you bubbles were a good idea.)
Now there are some kinds of laughter that make the laugher feel bigger, but the laughee smaller. We don’t recommend them. They taste bitter, sharp, and somewhat rotten. The best laughter makes everything taste better. Feel lighter. Happier. More spacious. More kind. More connected.
Like a bunch of people who all just discovered in delight that they’re all wearing argyle socks, and they all feel as if they’re all floating three inches off the ground, and it’s the very best feeling in the world.
The Serious Mirth Society 