Is Laughter the Answer?

Jim Carrey said on the CBS program "60 minutes" that he is better able to deal with depression now that he lives a life free of Prozac and alcohol. Carrey said he took Prozac for a long time but the drug didn't cure his depression. "I had to get off at a certain point because I realized that everything is just O.K.," he told Steve Kroft in an interview at his home in Brentwood, California. Even when he was taking Prozac, the depression didn't go away entirely, he says. Carrey says that he still has bouts, but that he knows how to deal with it. (From the International Herald Tribune)

Jim Carrey,
Johnny Carson,
John Belushi,
Chris Farley,
Dick Van Dike,
Jerry Seinfield.
What do they all have in common? Great comedians, yes but they also had deep problems which they could not fulfill with their humor.
It was said of Phil Hartman by his co-actors of Saturday Night Live, "I have never met a funnier man yet he was sad all the time."
Dick Van Dick, who became a raving alcoholic, said of his career, "I was making people laugh every week and I was dying on the inside."
"Laughter," I said, "is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish? (Ecclesiastes 2:2)
The Bible is not against a good laugh, but if you think that laughter is the answer for life, you are dead wrong. Today's world is all about laughter and comedy. Comedy networks, comedies, funny commercials...Some of the funniest comedians in history have had some of the biggest problems.
Jerry Seinfield said of this generation, "Everybody's looking for good sex, good food and a good laugh. They're just little islands of relief in often what is a painful existence."