Laughter is the Beginning of Wisdom

In the memoir "How My Stories Were Written" by Carlos Bulosan, he talks about something that an old man once told him "Laughter is the beginning of wisdom" (BW 13). I really liked this quote and it had me thinking about what exactly he was saying. I guess in some situations you have to have wisdom of a subject in order to understand jokes made about that subject matter. However, what I really think he is referring to is that to make it through this life you have to learn to laugh. Whether that is at yourself or at a situation, being able to laugh something off can be an extremely important skill of sorts. Yet, there is probably wide variety of interpretations to what this line may mean. If anybody else has some good ideas I would love to read your comments on this!