YOU ARE NOT YOUR NAME

"I am Sophie" Everyone points their fingers at me and starts laughing loudly. I laugh too. How funny, isn't it? "I am Erika." I hold my stomach tightly and irregularly squeeze the air out from the upper half of my body. My vocal chords vibrate and croaking sounds escape. A "Ha Ha Ha" from the right, a shy "Hi Hi Hi" from the front. A man flaps his arms in the air and drops to the floor. Did he just grunt?

This is repeated about fifteen times. A communal togetherness and a communal on top of each other. Cheerful and sarcastic. Exactly to my taste.

According to Goethe, Faust said to Gretchen: "A name is just smoke and mirrors.” And so is laughter. The statement "My name is Sophie" is already funny enough. One can only laugh. But “I am Sophie”. That is really funny. You can't be your name after all. How insane. Can you touch it? What does it look like?

Nomen es omen, right? The name is an omen. An omen… I was named after a princess. Still didn't become a princess. At least that's not how I feel at the moment. A river of sweat seeks its way through the valley rimmed by my breasts. I can't take it anymore. Tears run down my cheekbones and splash on the floor. Charly Chaplin already said: A day without laughter is a lost day. That's the only thing that distinguishes us from animals. The natural cocaine. And you don't even have to pay for it. Free and available everywhere and it helps not only the mind but also the body. In laughter clubs you can take your endorphin drug and share it.

The workshop leader claps her hands three times. A sign to bring us back from the stage of generated merriment to hard-hitting reality. "Fake it, until you make it" After a brief explanation, the next round begins. New round new happiness. Fifteen minutes of laugh therapy. Risks and side effects are not known. And when they can't laugh, they get tickled.

Still bothering me is the thesis of not being my name and if I am not my name, then what am I? What do we have if we are not our name? We have our laughter. That remains, if you want it that way.

So we live happily ever after.