In which Our Hero learns that ease is its own form of status.
The skills of upper-class social engagement and the skills of clowning: shockingly similar.
Can you keep it light—even when the topic isn’t?
Can you remember the game? That this is a game. That life is a game. And the more you remember it’s a game, the less you’ll feel poked. The less you feel poked, the less likely you’ll commit a faux pas.
When meeting someone new:
Can you stay present? Open? Emotionally available? Can you find pleasure in what they’re saying, find pleasure in yourself, and entertain yourself while entertaining them?
Do you make eye contact instead of studying the floor or the ceiling?
Can you jump to the new game quickly?
Roll with the punches without letting irritation leak? Or if you do get irritated, can you metabolize it quietly so others don’t feel it?
In short: are you easy?
Even shorter: be social soy sauce: enhancing whatever flavor is already present.
Do not be social tofu (merely a warm body), nor wasabi (adding too much kick), and certainly not ginger (an entirely unrelated taste altogether).
Some people don’t need to be easy. They have structural reasons to be included—money, skills, status, connections. Their mere existence provides value.
If you have those advantages, you can afford a little heaviness.
But if you lack them, ease becomes an important asset.
—
I met someone today who was surprised to learn a fairly large fact about her husband.
I get that.
It’s also foreign to me.
When one (A) has enough happening that there’s no need to narrate every detail, and (B) is so deeply present with others when actually together, the result is fewer facts shared and more connection felt. This is an instance of putting the text on the game.
Perhaps these people live such driven, full lives that they don’t need to lean on each other for conversational ballast. They’re satisfied by the things they’re doing. Their overlaps shrink. Their presence expands.
—
Maybe this is why the skills of social ease and clowning feel so linked for me. I had to learn lightness. I had to learn the game. I had to learn to entertain myself, then others, and to orient toward warmth and pleasantness.
Other people don’t always need those skills. They build companies, hire teams, command rooms, confer opportunities. What do I confer? Stories. Emotional resonance. Connection.
I’ve lived as a writer for the last decade. I’ve flown around the world, lived in a van, written books, attended clown school, played competitive pickleball, lived as an œstrogen-powered life form. These things made me interesting, but they did not give me structural advantages to hand out.
What I offer is not leverage. It’s wisdom. Presence. Delight.
So it sure as hell helps if I’m light.
Airy.
Gentle.
Easy.
Fun.
Funny.
Generous.
Kind.
This makes it possible to add me to your car, to your dinner, to your team. It makes me someone who lightens your load, even when you carry me on your shoulders.
But when I’m heavy?
Well.
🎈
Julian Wise 