Another week comes to an end. Today we discuss water in nature and laughter. It's time to start counting laughs and increasing the number of laughs per day. The Guardian made us laugh today with a monkey comparison, and Johnny Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls has a great punk rock list for your review.

Today's Big Story starts with a story we read in Aeon, a great digital magazine we recommend. The article that sparked our thoughts is about water in nature and where it wants to go. The article talks about; wetlands, rivers, dams, and floodplains. All of the interruptions humans have created throughout millennia to move water to where we wanted it. The article goes through many of the ideas we've thought about before, and then in style only Aeon has; it will take you places you might not think about.

The Aeon article got us thinking water is a life force theme, and water always gets what it wants. Martial arts uses water in training; the concept is “be like water”, which means to be flexible, find new ways to flow, and always move. Water is patient; water doesn't care what you do to move it; when you do, it will wait, maybe it will find a new path, but it's going to be water and do what water does. Can you destroy water? A scientist could answer that better than we could; close as we can figure if you boil water, it evaporates or changes its matter from liquid to gas, rises, and enters the atmosphere. Once it meets up with other evaporated water droplets in the atmosphere, it returns as rain. Do not use that on your next science test; those are the thoughts of creative writers!

Here is where the conversation goes from martial arts to contemporary evolution. There is a perception that Native North Americans understand water and nature in a sustainable sense. They lived off the land and conserved what was necessary to ensure the land given to them, and they gave to the land. Another disclaimer, this is creative writing and not meant as historical fact. It's a perception and a positive perception. As Europe began to explore and conquer North America, they brought the technology to move mountains, rivers, fire, and everything in between. Water is waiting, and when it is over, it will go wherever it wants to go again.

If you are still reading and you thought, huh, that was interesting, how about we go even deeper? What if we compare water to the civil rights movement that started in the 60s and continues today? Not from a controversial position, just making the comparison. Another disclaimer, the With A Shout writing team is small, and our publisher is a fifty-year-old white guy. We can make observations only, having, through no fault of our own, been born into a privileged class.

Here's the comparison for all minorities, genders, and disadvantaged. In many of those cases, the groups that fought for rights and those fighting with them were like water. Water waits; water will collect and build wherever you section it off or divert it to, and when done building; lakes and dams, the water continues to build until there is more water than conviction, and water again will go where it wants to go.  

Paragraph. Water can overpower, especially when it partners up with another one of its element buddies, air, in the form of wind. Hurricanes and floods show the power water has, but most water sits and waits quietly and then goes where it wants to go.

It doesn't matter how long you want to swim against the current, which is water and air. Water always goes where it wants to go. It makes you wonder how much better life could be if we were like water and just set up a sail and went with it.

This write-up started with a thought; "how many times a day do you laugh?" As you think about it and tell yourself, "not enough," you'd be just like us. We thought about it as a form of tracking mental health or life happiness. We started with a thought and then did some research. By research, you know, we Googled it.

The first sentence from an article from Psychology Today says it all and should make all adults change course immediately.

If you are not between the ages of a toddler to adolescent, this has to shock you! At the same time, if you have kids, work with kids, or know some kids, start counting; the number of times they laugh says a lot about them (and you). How great is life to laugh one hundred times, and if you can do that every day, WOW!

If you are responsible for young kids, you are responsible for keeping smiles as often as you can on their little faces. We read one story about a new dad who worked too many hours during the day and would show up late to his four-year-olds tee-ball games. When he did get there, he had to cover a base the kids needed to run to. Someone else volunteered him because he was late! His job was to direct the kids standing on second base to run to third base when someone hit the ball off the tee. The kids were four and five years old; this was not a sport but an activity with a sport-related theme.  

One day this dad was directing the kid on second base to run to him at third base. This kid was his kid, and the smile on his kid's face was ear to ear, and dad decided right then and there that his job was that smile first, and his work came second. He raised three boys with that guiding principle for another twenty years.

Laughter is contagious; in our scientific method, we watched hours of local news bloopers on Youtube to prove this. Half of the bloopers contained something funny happening on the show, and everyone in the newsroom laughed out loud. Here is a link to a Youtube video called Best TV News Bloopers Of The Decade.  You will laugh out loud. We love stand-up comedy; even good stand-up comedy rarely makes you laugh out loud if you watch it yourself at home. The laughter is contagious if you go to a comedy club or a comedy show.  

Everything in excess, says every kid. As an adult, it is the opposite; we have to limit everything; calories, drinks, money spent, etc. None of that stuff makes us laugh, not just smile, laugh out loud. Start counting laughs, and when you determine you don't laugh enough per day and you don't, find ways to laugh more.

John Naughton writes in The Guardian about the danger of a Global (Digital) Town Square, as Elon Musk has eluded to. Here is a quote from the article's opening paragraph that sets up what you can read if you follow the link. We also added it to our laugh counter after reading it!

Liza Lenrini writes for Spin and wrote 5 Albums I Can't Live Without John Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls. Since we saw Goo Goo Dolls in the early 90s when they opened for The Sundays, and the Goo Goo Dolls would be on one of our lists, we wanted to check it out.

One thing that tends to agitate us punks is your favorite punk bands heap praise on the same band's everyone else does. We get it; the Beatles are the greatest, and take nothing away from them. We want our punks to get inspiration from other punks. Rzeznik does that with his list of albums. Echo & the Bunnymen, The Clash, Peter Gabriel, and Arcade Fire, we say YES to all of them! Rzeznik makes his argument for The Who as the original punk band, and at least at With A Shout, The Who leans more punk than The Beatles or The Stones.

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With A Shout Team