Tonight on one of the occasions of Elias laughing I was reminded of Robert Heinlein’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land. The martian protagonist Valentine Michael Smith has the hardest time understanding earthling laughter. But in the course of the story Smith has an epiphany about the nature of human laughter: it almost always is a reflection of some wrong. From slapstick to black comedy, we mostly laugh as a reaction to the disorder we perceive, not out of joy.
Baby laughter is totally different. Elias does not understand sarcasm, he is not cynical, and he does not delight at others’ expense. When he laughs, it is fueled purely by happiness. I know it would be vain to keep my son from learning the adult conception of laughter. But I wish I laughed more like him.