Can comics be philosophers too?

I had an hour last night, no one in the house; except the dogs, and so I decided to turn on (what I thought was an hour) Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays. Billy has always been one of my favorites marrying the classic acts of the past; Sid Caesar, the Marx Brothers, Bill Cosby with the new acts of the now; Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Dana Carvey, as well as City Slickers, Forget Paris and of course When Harry Met Sally but also a little known song that was on pretty good repetition in my Dad's van from City Slickers - "Where Did My Heart Go,"  which still to this day strikes a chord with me. So, in any case, I let it slide that he adores, and actually was, a Yankee (for a day) due to his everyman, family oriented slant. The show itself was great and I learned another piece of wisdom from another comic.

For some reason I take my cues from comics. While some take there's from the historic: "the Bard", Plato, Homer,  others the religious: Jesus, Buddha, Moses, the Prophet (Peace be upon him) and still others sport: Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Stan the Man, I find wisdom in the humorous: Drew Carey, Bill Cosby, Monty Python, Walt Disney and now Billy Crystal.

There's a lot of stuff going on in the world today; war in Gaza, war in Ukraine, poverty - home and abroad, downed airliners, sickness, illness, political inaction and apathy, the list goes on and on, the pain; "the boulder, the otherness" as in his one man show, 700 Sundays, Billy Crystal, calls it, keeps getting bigger and bigger.

"The otherness" - when you can't feel, can't think, can't concentrate - happens on a personal level; mourning the loss of a loved one, disappointment in career, unhappiness and happens on a national level; 9/11, Kennedy Assignation, Vietnam, war, divisiveness. "The otherness" hit a young Billy hard when he lost his father at 15, roughly 700 Sundays into his life, he couldn't function, couldn't play, couldn't entertain we he knew that was all he wanted to do.

While he sat Shiva for his father, his father's past came to mourn his loss, his father's past of jazz, music and interracial harmony. Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie attended his father's Shiva and made it a place of music and love, a young Billy couldn't find the joy he once did. It wasn't until he heard laughter from "his room" that he exited his bedroom to find his "Uncle Bern" cracking up the crowd he thought how could this be, his uncle had just lost his best friend, his partner in life how could he laugh at a time like this when "the otherness, the bolder" was so big? It was then a retrospective Crystal said he learned one of the most important things in life;   

"...even in your worse pain it's ok and important to laugh." - Billy Crystal (on his "Uncle Bern's" legacy) 700 Sundays

When you think about it that way, when you think about the ability to laugh, the ones who love you, the ones who believe in you, the ones you can't do without; then "the otherness", the boulder gets crushed into pebbles.

Thanks for those who can make me laugh, who love me, who believe in me, who will not let "the otherness" overrun me or others thank you! Thank you for reminding me that "...even in your worse pain it's ok and important to laugh,"

(Catch 700 Sundays on HBO "you'll have the time of his life", even if you can't stand the Yankees)