“He smiles because he wants something from you. This is dishonest. He makes you feel confused & lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair.” --David Foster Wallace
It’s easy to smile when my hands aren’t wrinkled from cold greasy water,
My shoes don’t pinch, my back doesn’t ache, I’ve had enough sleep, I don’t have a headache and I’m not quaking in a windy rain.
Eastern Europeans regard Americans as dumb when they smile constantly.
It’s easy to smile when my bank, the insurance company, my tax returns and the landlord agree.
It’s easy to smile when neither my children nor my boss are nagging, when I can leave work on time and the bus comes when it should and the shower’s warmth is strong.
It’s not easy to smile when my minimal daily requirement of beauty and truth aren’t met and my teeth hurt.
To forget that others don’t have joy is a mistake.
Devastation and destruction hurt. The speaker said humans are the only primate with the insincere smile. Only humans of the mammals have the facial muscle capable of a fake smile.
The sincere smile has not guile, but crinkles around the eye. The genuine smile is the crows feet.
It’s easy to smile in the pretty puddles.
Dogs smile, cats don’t.
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Elizabeth Wadsworth Ellis was an outside child, conceived outside marriage, wed outside her culture, served outside her country in Serbia, Sofia and St. Petersburg, Russia, holds beliefs outside her upbringing and jumped outside airplanes.