In which Our Hero manages his emotions (and plays poker because, with a broken foot, what else are you going to do?)
If clowning is about managing your emotions in service of giving pleasure, then poker might actually train part of that muscle. The emotional management is enormous.
Earlier today I lost three spots in a row.
One I misplayed slightly.
Two were just unlucky.
I assumed my strategy wasn’t working.
But it was.
I do this in clowning, too: I try a thing, it doesn’t land, and I immediately abandon it. But that’s rarely the answer. Sometimes you need to push the thing farther. Sometimes you pivot to a different game. But the one thing you don’t need to do is collapse inward and quit. You don’t just give up and take your ball and go home.
Instead, check your fundamentals.
In poker: Is this still a good game? Am I playing well?
In clowning: Have I found the game? Am I playing it?
Yet the two arts couldn’t be more opposite.
Poker is about hiding.
Showing nothing.
No emotion, no tells, no generosity.
Clowning is the opposite: openness, earnestness, authenticity, giving.
Poker is selfishness.
Clowning is generosity.
At one point today I was down $650. I kept playing because I was playing well—and because, in theory, I’d been winning the whole time.
That’s another key difference: poker has theory.
Clowning has only practice.
Poker’s truth reveals itself over hundreds of thousands of hands.
Clowning’s truth reveals itself instantly.
If everyone’s laughing at you at the poker table, you’re the fish.
If everyone’s laughing with you on stage, you’re the clown.
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I was also especially open with my family today. That was nice 🙂
Time and place, boys. Time and place 😎
Julian Wise 