In which Our Hero wonders what specific problem is afoot.
My roommate asked if I’m on the spectrum.
He teaches improv to autistic kids professionally, so the question wasn’t random. He even offered some lightly camouflaged feedback he gives his students:
- They find the game and play it very hard, but ignore the pleasure of the people around them.
- They approach situations with a kind of childlike openness, but the moment someone comments on them, they build a thick, impenetrable shield.
I asked him if he is on the spectrum.
He said no.
I’m grateful for his attempt to help. I’m also aware his description fits me in class. What I’m still missing are the “what” and “how” of changing it.
–
I’ve only worked in one real office. I was 19, a sophomore in college, with a summer job at a NYC marketing agency. They paid me $16/hr to make the same repeated mouse clicks, transferring digital assets from one system to another. I downloaded a mouse-recording tool and automated my job. Then automated the interns’ jobs. Then automated my direct superior’s job.
And nobody liked me.
I was there to work. To do the task. To be effective. Clock in, clock out, $16/hr. Promotion was not on the menu. Mostly, they just wanted me swept quietly under the rug.
The connection between that summer and here isn’t skill: I’m far worse at clowning than I was at automating workflows. The connection is the feeling in the room. The details are different, but the emotional texture is uncannily similar. There, as here, I tried to make friends. There, as here, people were cordial but uninterested.
To me, clown school feels like a coworking space. Others have formed friendships; I’m batting maybe 2-for-10 on hangout invitations, with no successful follow-ups/second hangs from the two. Eventually you give up, videochat friends from home, and read a book.
It makes it harder that I’m not enjoying the classes.
Nor am I learning well.
It’s just terrifically challenging.
Maybe that’s intentional: the hardest class comes after the fundamentals.
Or maybe I’m unraveling.
I keep wondering whether the problems I had back in April/May were different ones. I was in a completely different psycho-emotional state then.
–
After class today, a teacher asked what I planned to do with my broken foot.
I told them I’m of two minds:
- Take it as a sign from the gods and get the fuck out of here, returning in January.
- Stay and see whether this new, legless constraint allows for new growth.
–
Last night a friend told me I only ever talk about myself.
Sure.
My pleasure is in the game. And it is vast. But it doesn’t seem to be in the sharing. More autistic people become computer programmers than clowns. Perhaps I’m less naturally equipped. Maybe my version of sharing the game is the multiple clowns who I helped with visa applications. Maybe it’s in the creation of a clown house so people aren’t stuck with individual roomshares. Maybe it’s cleverness or intellect. Those play poorly on this stage.
High achievers share one trait: grit.
Do I want to grit through this?
Do I even want to be a clown?
At the beginning, my clown school goals were 80% spiritual and 20% tangible. The tangible ones were:
- Learn the practice.
- Learn the theory.
- Make friends.
Right now:
- I’m injured.
- People keep telling me they don’t connect with me (and act like it).
- Peers are also sharing their suffering.
–
One performer friend says the physical restriction might actually help my clowning. Another says being forced to “not try so hard” might help me be better at clowning and enjoy myself more.
Personally, I’m unconvinced the foot bone is connected to the trying bone. Or that either one attaches to the funny bone.
Meanwhile I spent six hours crying on Tuesday.
Cried three more times today.
And feel like I’m banging my head against a wall.
(This feels like a particularly intense few weeks, not my new permanent state.)
With my foot injury, I even lost morning movement class, which I liked more than afternoon improv.
Ugh.
Today in class I performed one of the “substances”: Chloric Acid. I struggled because I didn’t know what specific acid she meant. She said it was something used to unclog drains, so I did drano. She said my rhythm was too slow. My later googling suggests chloric acid can have a fast, popping rhythm—but it is definitely not a drain cleaner. Maybe she meant hydrochloric acid? If this is my problem at clown school, maybe I’m better suited to be a chemist. (Tomorrow, I hope they ask me to play Barium Disodium.)
When it came time for “cream,” I sat out.
Then I lied down on the floor so I could elevate my fractured foot above my heart. Which my roommate later said indicated to him I was autistic.
What’s next?
Ugh.
Time for more searching.
The searching is the practice, I guess.
😮💨
Julian Wise 