In which Our Hero contemplates steadiness.
My roommate and I carpooled to Paris today. En route, we discussed improv and clowning. Some students at our school want to be clowns. Others want to be actors or performers of a different stripe.
This school teaches pleasure-finding and pleasure-sharing. That’s it. Everything else is downstream.
Lately, I’ve had much less ability to share pleasure. Since around July, something’s been off. It’s not that I’m more self-conscious (I’m not). It’s not that I feel less pleasure (I don’t). It’s that my ability to give it—my pleasure-sharing skill—has dipped from where it recently was.
At an alumni gathering for my university, people asked what I do. I told them I’m in clown school. They asked what I plan to do with it. I had simple, light conversations. Most of it felt uninteresting. Like I had no ability to use the skills I had just learned to find and share pleasure.
Why was it so hard? Where does this difficulty come from?
One: a cough. I’ve been sick the last few days.
Two: a fractured foot. Not exactly peak performance mode.
¿Three: the weird-ass mental state this school induces?
¿Four: just not doing this thing well?
Five: [redacted, personal]
—
Last night, I went to a cabaret, watched friends perform, and talked with them afterward. We discussed clowning and performance. We connected easily. Pleasantly. Full of spark. Despite having trouble with this the last few weeks. With the same people, no less.
Why does this turn on and off without my permission? This ability to connect with others—to care, to be curious, to find pleasure and give it back?
It’s odd.
It feels, currently, out of my control.
I guess that’s why I’m studying it. To gain control of giving light.
Julian Wise 