Tag: Life

Clown School Day 30: Pleasure Under Duress

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero puts on his big boy pants.

Everyone received a mark of zero today. Every. Single. Student. A new record. Some people earned three zeroes; some two; some only one. I loved it.

The teacher says I sometimes laugh when no one else does. “When Julian laugh, he is alone.” Fair enough. Sometimes I’m not laughing at the thing itself, but at what the thing makes me think of. Like a few weeks ago: a group tried to play a game where they became “scared” whenever someone said a word with the sound boo in it. The game was stupid; the play was bad; and the gap between the silliness of the idea and the flatness of the execution made me laugh. It was like watching someone throw themselves at the ground and miss. Delightful.

I received a zero today. I enjoyed it. I don’t care about their grade. That’s just part of the game. I’m glad I succeeded in doing some new things well.

I had one moment onstage—maybe half a second—where it all clicked. Holding my hands in perfect blades (as I was a stick insect), I tried to open a soda bottle. I was having so much fun; I looked ridiculous in my all-gray outfit; the audience laughed. Then one of my partners stole the bottle away, stealing the game from me and thereby ending it.

During the summer course, I heard the head clown teacher say something like “You have found a problem. That is a very special thing for a clown. If you solve it, you will need to find a new problem and that is not always so easy.”

Still, for that instant, I succeeded. 😀

During talkbacks, Head Teacher said: “And this guy [me]. At least he is finally covering his legs.” (I usually wear shorts.) So I raised one pant leg—just a small, innocent reveal. She laughed and looked away, maybe a little embarrassed. I did the same with the other leg. She laughed again. Light, gentle, generous, giving. Success! You’re not only performing when you’re on stage. You’re always performing. [And, well, I was still standing on the stage.]

Today I took the whole class as a joke. A game. A silly thing we’re all doing together. That shift alone made everything feel lighter. It made me more receptive and open.

I found the fun and the games in her comments. I felt lightness all the way through. (Except for the time when she said I laugh alone. I felt hurt and sad and lonely for a moment there. And then I found the lightness and pleasure again 🙂

Monday was my most painful Clown School day yet. On Tuesday, I started to recover. Today, I find the whole exercise funny. Our teacher literally started class with vocal exercises of her pronouncing the word “zero”. After people performed, she sometimes said “[X person] had a good entrance…” and sometimes said “[Y person was a] total catastrophe” yet still gave everyone in that group the same mark: zero. A farcical grading system! A curve with a mean of zero and a standard deviation of also zero! Only needing one number card to hold up! How droll. What a deeply silly ritual.

One student had a few little flashes of something—tiny moments, not the whole piece—and I told her after the show. She lit up, said it was nice of me to say (and said it in the way that people do when they’re authentically touched). We’re all in this together, and a glimpse of success counts.

Somehow, when we’re in rough waters, I find the pleasure more easily than when we’re sailing smooth seas. On Monday, right after everyone’s big triumphs of last Friday, I was the lowest of the low. Perhaps this is part of why I laugh alone. I suppose there’s fun in that discrepancy too.

“What’s funny about suffering?” you may ask.

What isn’t?

—

I think we’re being trained to find pleasure under duress. A clown’s job is to bring pleasure to the audience, they have to mine that pleasure from their own world, and share it. And the world isn’t always gentle: political trouble, personal strife, illness, rough crowds. If I can find pleasure when things go well and also when things go poorly: that’s a kind of success.

They’re training us to be successful clowns. If you’re going to be a truly successful clown, you need more than one safe trick. One peak of pleasure isn’t enough. To find higher peaks and fill your bag with more tricks, you have to explore: try things, fail, fall into valleys, climb out again. Failure is how you map where the fun actually lives. The teachers are training us to fail well so we can explore more freely. The more I flop, the more terrain I get to see. And I better entertain the audience along the way.

Right now, this stick insect finds more pleasure during the poor times.

What a funny thing to be.

P.S. I watched the second-year clown students today. They were also harangued more aggressively than usual. I’m almost certain this is intentional. I approve. When something works, push it to the extreme.

Clown School Day 28: Boring and Dumb

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In which Our Hero learns to befriend his flops.

Americans are pushies.
Not sensitive. Not gentle.
We want it, so we push it.

It’s not attractive. It’s not sensitive. It’s not connected.

—

Today, I was boring. A cause for celebration.

I entered the stage as a mangy, rabid coyote. I loved it. Head Teacher even said I was full of delight and pleasure—but that my pleasure wasn’t reaching the audience.

So she began to chant:
“Boring! Boring! Buh-buh-buh-boring!”

The class joined in. Then I joined in.
And when I joined, they loved me.

I danced; we chanted; I escalated to “…and dumb!” They loved that too. Real humility—not performance, not irony. I was boring! I was dumb! I was ugly. And we loved that together.

We love someone who makes fun of themselves.

After Head Teacher called out a fellow student for pushing too hard, the student offered to jump out the window. The audience laughed. The assistant teacher helped him open it. We laughed again. Excellent pedagogy. Also: improves student-teacher ratio. 

—

After class, I decided to catch the train to Paris. I had four minutes to pack my bag. Then I thought:
Why am I rushing?
This isn’t fun.

So I slowed down. Decided to take the next train. Stopped by the café instead. And since I was going, I figured I might as well bring a cake for my classmates.

I texted the group chat and showed up with cake.
They were so grateful—
—or at least they would have been if any of them had been there.

The café was entirely bereft of clowns. Oops.

I sat outside and chuckled at myself. A homeless man approached. I waved him away out of habit… then called him back and offered cake.

He asked if I had a knife to cut it in two. I didn’t. So he broke it with his hands.

It brought me joy that he stumbled away without saying merci.
It gave me delight to share cake with someone who wanted cake.
It was joyful to see him divide it in half—
—he’s not greedy, after all.

Sometimes your flops are kinder than your successes.
If you stay open, good things arrive.
Clowns don’t need cake; hungry (and drunk?) homeless people do.

—

Another homeless man later refused my cake, saying, “If I ate cake, I would die.”

Good to know the homeless are still French.

—

As I write this, I’ve arrived in Paris to buy makeup and a gray shirt. On Friday, I’ll be a stick bug. For camouflage, I’ve chosen gray: dignified, dull, affectionately geriatric.

At dinner, the woman beside me asked what I do. When I said I study clown, she told me I have a kind and happy aura.

The couple who sat down after her asked what brought me to Paris… and then invited me for Shabbat dinner in New York.

The woman in the makeup shop gave me her number as she wants to go for a walk with me. 

Clearly, I’m doing something right.

—

What’s the lesson from today’s class?
Something about having good humor, laughing at myself, not taking life—or art—too seriously?

Beats me: I’m boring and dumb.

Clown School Day 26: Something is Rotten in the State of Julian

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero wants to run away from joining the circus

Fuck all you hoes. (Get a grip, motherfucker.)

I don’t feel connected. I don’t feel like I belong. I don’t feel… part of anyone’s anything. Is that them? Is it me? Did I watch too much TV? Is that a hint of accusation in your eyes?

Mondays after class, everyone mills around forming groups for Friday’s performance. And every Monday, I feel like I’m picked last in gym. It’s not that anyone is doing anything wrong. It’s that my internal meter flips into nobody wants you. Even though I have no idea whether that’s true or not.

In Movement class, too, I somehow end up in the group of three more often than not. (“Everyone in pairs, one group of three.) Some part of me takes this as evidence. Evidence of what? That I don’t fit. That I’m the odd one out. That I’m in the wrong place even when I want to be here more than anything.

None of this is rational.
It just feels real.

I’ve asked people a few times to grab dinner or go for a walk, and the responses have been mixed. That should be normal. It is normal. But this week, the rejections land harder than they should. My brain turns each one into a thesis on exile.

And so I keep circling the same questions:

  • Is it that I don’t like them?
  • Is it that they don’t like me?
  • Or am I simply struggling to be open?

Is this why I can’t clown? Is this the same issue: some belief that if they saw me, they wouldn’t like me → so I don’t show them myself?

Head Teacher once said that even if I don’t want to perform with others, I still have to perform for the audience—to give. I keep wondering if she can see the part of me that prefers single-player games. The part that only trusts what I can control.

So yeah—Friday requires groups of 3 or 5. I still don’t have a group. I posted in the group chat. And a small, childish part of me wants to take my ball and go home.
Fuck this.
I don’t need this.
Except… I clearly do.

—

After class, someone asked how I was.
“I’ve been better.”
She tried to give me a hug. Kind, if a little awkward. I walked away still feeling disconnected, but I guess appreciating the attempt? That’s the weird part: even gestures of care glance off me this week.

What the fuck is going on?

They say you’ll see sadness in the eyes of a clown.
Is that because clowning attracts people searching for joy? Who else dedicates themselves to fun except those who’ve had to hunt for it? It’s the old question: Who is the clown for the clown?

For me, the work is spiritual. The connection, the nakedness, the earnestness. And right now, all of that feels out of reach.

I sobbed three separate times today. Is that sensitive enough for you, Head Teacher?

The first time was after class, when groups were forming. Historically, I’ve had terrible luck picking groups—worse than random probability—so now I let randomness decide. There’s also the small practical matter: I came here to learn to work with whoever shows up.

But still: no group. Again.

I’m clearly struggling with the social part of clown school. And it stings, because this is the place people come when they feel misaligned with the “normal” world. The circus is for the outsiders. But what happens when you feel like an outsider inside the circus?

So today, when I tried being an ostrich and got one laugh before retreating into my shell, I felt that same old instinct: run, hide, disappear.

Maybe that’s part of the training. They apply pressure and see what cracks, what softens, what finally opens.

In my case, the message I keep hearing from the teachers is:
They don’t love you because you’re not showing them you.

And fuck, that’s hard. It’s hard to show yourself when you already feel unwanted.

Anyway—
I still lack a group.
So that. Really. Hurts.

P.S. Head Teacher said my clothing looked like broccoli vomit. I believe she’s suggesting I dress differently. So tomorrow, I will. Change.

Clown School Weekend 5.2: Good at Games, Bad at Play

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero muses on play

Do I like play?

For someone who has historically liked games—loved games, spent thousands of hours inside them—it’s a surprising question to ask.

There’s no question I like games. And play is what we do in games. So I suppose I like play?

This explanation feels insufficient.

I like lighthearted engagement in low-stakes, real-world-mimicking activities. In that sense, I like playing.

But often when others play with me, I generally don’t experience it as mutual play. And often when I try to play with others, they don’t experience it as playing together. (They sometimes experience it as me playing at them or against them, which has its own problems compared to us playing with each other.) It’s rare for me to find someone with whom play becomes mutually satisfying.

This isn’t necessarily about my love of play. It may be about my skill at play.

Eight or so years ago, a friend told me I didn’t know how to play. It was one of those moments you remember: if not for the bluntness of the comment, then for the proximity of his anger to a fist arriving at your face.

Learning to play requires paying attention to others. It’s a feedback loop: you stoke their fires, they stoke yours. And with rare exception, I’m not interested in stoking fires. The pool of people I like is small; my interest in socializing outside that pool is also small. So perhaps I simply have less experience in social play—either from lack of historical interest or poor methodology.

This, to be clear, is about social play.

Only two (three?) weeks ago did I first play a game to play rather than to win.

Historically, my engagement with games has been more optimization than play. Perhaps that’s why my win rate is high: if most people play, the one who optimizes will win. I analyze, comprehend, break down, and rebuild. These are fun for me, thus part of my play. But how many people do you know who approach a casual board-game night like this? And how many people want to rejoin someone who plays a board game night like this?

My clown teachers say I need sensitivity. I think they mean gentleness, and sensitivity is one route to gentleness. Sensitivity is letting experiences permeate you. Those who know me—family especially—would say I’m already very high in sensitivity (i.e. sensing the world around me, including the experiences of others). My teachers may mean a specific flavor: gentle sensitivity with lighthearted reactions. Not that I lack sensitivity, but that I lack lightness of spirit and gentleness of response. 

Yesterday at 4 a.m., a bird flew into my apartment window. I learned this at 11 a.m., when my roommate showed me the box he’d put it in. We called French animal rescues; none were helpful. I made a joke about how the French might simply eat this sort of injured bird. He said (paraphrasing), “Come on. This is an opportunity to be sensitive, man!”

As a classmate, he knows I’m working on this skill. What he might mean is that the joke felt heartless. Some people don’t like dark humor; some don’t like cultural humor. Perhaps what they really mean is: give what your audience wants.

I used this skill when running sales at my previous company: give them what they want; say less—always less—as less is more.

And perhaps my teachers are saying that almost no one wants me without gentleness.

In competitive games, my strategy is often to use my strength against the opponent’s weakness. It’s a good way to win. But it only attracts people who love competition.

So if I want cooperative relationships,
I’ll have to learn to play.

(Closing the loop on that earlier story: I have never been punched in the face. I’ve only been punched once, by someone experiencing a very different reality. I have, however, been threatened with face-punching roughly five times. I’d like to keep that streak—and ideally reduce the threats.)

—

Today I watched a clown show. Afterward, I left the theater to go home. And upon stepping outside, I realized that part of sensitivity is patience. So I went back, stood outside, and let myself be sensitive. Two people I enjoy talking with emerged, and we walked to the train together. It was lovely.

+1 for sensitivity and patience.

Clown School Day 25: Successful Elements

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero’s class sets records.

Today, our class succeeded. Five of us earned fives, two earned sixes, and many of the rest pulled in strong marks. Even I received a “not bad” for one of my two performances. (The other got a zero.)

Why did today work so well? 

  • First, we were all pulling for each other. Cheers before and after each performance. We didn’t previously do this. It’s very helpful to your peers. 
  • Second, the exercise was fundamentally fun: embody an element (earth, fire, water, air). Enjoyable to do, and powerful enough to allow for layering the text gently atop. 
  • Third, the exercise was simple. Embody an element. Low stakes.

My first element was fire. One line in, I lost the text. They kicked me off for it: six hours of memorization, gone. The takeaway: start memorizing on Monday. Use sleep cycles for the memorizing. Earlier, lighter memorization beats late, intense memorization. 

My fire received these notes: 

  • “This is not fire. This is fire with petrol.” 
  • “When he starts to speak, we see something. He is sensitive. I think, ‘Ah, something is coming.’”

My second element was snow.

I began with the same image as yesterday. I watched it. I barely moved. I started saying the text (the same text as we used for fire). The teacher yelled: “Shut up!” then “Move!” then “Snow falling down from the sky!”, then repeated these three over and over. (Said one friend: “It seems funny to me that you’re asked to memorize lines but then she doesn’t actually want you to say them”.)

My favorite part was that she said “Shut up” and “You talk too much!” after nearly every sound I made—and several times when I wasn’t speaking. She’s freakishly skilled at spotting when I’m reciting text in my head. This is an impressive superpower. I need a big, strong, vivid image to overpower my love of text. Or maybe to make myself brilliant enough to be dumb: know the text well enough to forget it, but still have it when I need… #writerproblems

A few notes from the day:

  • The exercise that gives you the breakthrough isn’t necessarily the one you should perform. (I possibly should have done Earth, not Snow.)
  • When the rhythm of the lines matches the rhythm of the movement, it becomes boring.
  • What I like doesn’t always matter. The audience tells me what they like.

Head Teacher’s comments on my snow: 

  • “Not bad, but this is not snow.”
  • “You need good humor always. Something funny in your mind.”
  • “Even when you aren’t speaking, we see you speaking text.”
  • “You were sensitive.”

Teacher comments to others (because they’re funny):

  • “This is ‘theater de mi cajones.’ You know what it means? It means theater of my balls.”
  • “It’s a good image but it doesn’t arrive to us because of your shitty voice.”

Memorizing the lines isn’t actually that important. Being able to say the lines is. If you only know the first three, you can still earn great marks if you perform them well (*cough* one of my roommates *cough*).

I over-invested in learning the lines. I under-invested in being able to do the lines while doing the exercise. That’s the part I should have practiced. Or visualized. Or practiced and visualized.

Just because the assignment involved memorizing lines does not mean the assignment is to share the lines you memorized. Ain’t clowning great? 

My goal this week was sensitivity/openness/gentleness. Today showed more glimpses (I opened briefly during Fire, and on-and-off during snow). I’ll keep working on this. For now, it’s nice to be landing it more often. 

I received a zero and a “not bad.” The zero came with a comment that I was sensitive and open. Win. The “not bad” came with the same comment. I’m improving at this key trait. 

Intensity: check. Voice: powerful. Game: reliable. Impulse: alive.

Sensitivity/gentleness/openness/giving: getting there, if only Our Hero would shut up.

Clown School Day 23: Everybody Wants a Little Slice

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In which Our Hero measures how much to give.

For a good time, bring a cake to a gathering of friends. Cut slices for each person. Ask how big they want. Invariably, they’ll say “Just a small slice,” or “Just a little one.”

Then, if you move the knife slowly and ask them to “say when,” you’ll find each person’s little slice is different. In some cases, it’s twice the size of someone else’s small slice.

When they say, “Just a small slice,” for whom are they speaking?

They’re not communicating in your language. If they were, small would mean the same thing.
Instead, they’re saying something like: “I’m signaling that I’m not greedy.”
Or: “I’m allowing myself pleasure, but a restrained version of it.”

Maybe I’ve always found moments like this confusing. Maybe because I’m autistic. Maybe because I never learned the unwritten grammar of appetite and permission. Maybe because the cultural norm to be small and not enjoy yourself is dumb.

On stage, the same puzzle repeats.
How much of myself is the right-sized slice to offer?

I have a great and powerful energy in me. I can give a lot. I have given a lot. My teammates, my teachers, and I all agree: when I was fire today, I burned.

But still—I didn’t burn for them.

Fuck.

I have so, so much pleasure. So much deep, physical intensity.
And goddamn it, how do I transmit this to you? So far, I’ve tried: 

  1. Give it directly. Too pushy.
  2. Increase my own pleasure. Too self-contained.
  3. Recommendation from friends: play with oscillation—me-pleasure, then share; me-pleasure, then share again.

Complicating factors:
(1) I can’t see on stage (I can’t wear my glasses with the neutral mask).
(2) I don’t find myself beautiful.

The teacher’s aid begrudgingly gave me her speculation today (directness like this isn’t really part of the pedagogy). She said she senses that I have beliefs about how I’m perceived, and that my behavior on stage is an attempt to offer those perceptions, then shatter them. Which isn’t the same as showing myself—it’s showing my idea of myself, or how I imagine others see me.

Maybe she’s right.
When I was beautiful, they loved me. Subtle. Gentle. Open.
I remember it dimly: tears streaming, face unguarded, giving.

I want to find that again.
Tomorrow, I’ll try.

When the Head Teacher told me I was insufficiently sensitive, she began with: “Not bad.”
And when I raised my hand to ask a question, she added:
“When you have done something good, it is better not to ask questions, no? It is better to think about what you have done.”

Maybe I’m harder on myself than they are.
Or, as a friend put it:
“It’s nice to know you’re harder on yourself than the teachers are.
It’s nice to know you’re not just failing over and over.
Or at least that you’re failing over and over—but it’s working.”

Tomorrow, instead of trying so hard to give that I push,
I’ll try so hard to open that I break.
And I’ll give that to the audience.
Maybe they’ll love it.

Clown School Day 22: Storm Warning

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In which Our Hero mistakes force for generosity.

Today I was a storm. A mighty tempest, raging.
I had INTENSITY. I had GIVING.
But… I was pushing.

Well, shit. I keep hearing this feedback, don’t I?
One classmate keeps being told he looks like a gorilla who needs a banana, so at least my comment wasn’t that.
But still: pushing.

Yes, pushing. Pushing. PUSHING!!!
The thing I do in all too many areas of life.
I want X to happen, so I force it into existence.
I want to avoid Y, so I shove it away.
I don’t really nurture things. I don’t calmly cultivate.

And when I perform with such intensity—without either (A) checking in with the audience, or (B) easing up enough to wink that it’s all a game—people find it frightening.

Maybe that’s the problem.
My performance curve—intensity vs. time—starts high and just stays there.
But it should breathe: rise, relax to dip slightly, rise higher, dip again.
We don’t want someone who punches full-force out of the gate.
We want someone who plays with us, gently escalating.

I demonstrate competence, but not alignment.
And that feels familiar.
Maybe I’m just not well-aligned.

I don’t like authority.
I don’t trust institutions.
I rarely side with the masses.
So people don’t trust me?
Am I fundamentally out of sync?

It’s odd to feel both like a lump of clay being molded, and an alien dropped into a land with a new language.

Clown school does weird things to your psychology.
I’m doubting a lot—really a lot.
Questioning my preferences, my desires.
Wondering where my heart and my head line up.

I’m not used to being part of a group.
After decades of being ostracized from them—since kindergarten—I now both crave belonging and violently resist it.

Here, I must give to the group.
I chose performance as a solitary act: me and the audience, a controlled parasocial exchange.
Turns out: no.

Clowning is about relation. Taking and giving.
And I’m trying to give so hard.
I just want them to like me.

But I’m not actually likable when I’m like that.
Because a truly likable person doesn’t need to be liked.
They simply are kind, generous, and light.
They offer themselves, and we like them for it.

It’s telling that my first thought was, “I should do an impression of that kind of person.”
Because underneath it all… I don’t think I am one.

Maybe that’s the real problem.

“Hey, therapist: I’ve got a topic for us!”

Clown School Day 20: Le Jeu (Game) Over

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In which Our Hero becomes Our Zero

“When Julian enter, was he with [scene partner] or was he alone?”

Audience: “Alone.”

At least I’m consistent.

(That’s a crap joke, but I’m keeping it.)

I’ve now attended two classes here.

Both had a final presentation.

In both final presentations, I received a mark of zero.

Zero is a bad mark.

It means:

  • You were boring.
  • You weren’t even interesting enough to get specific notes.
  • We could not see your pleasure.
  • You were not beautiful.
  • We do not love you.
  • Goodbye.

The Week

Monday: We received our assignments. I chose a partner I liked — skilled, smart, fun.

Tuesday: We rehearsed and found a stupid little game we loved.

Wednesday: We showed it to a trial audience. They couldn’t see the game. So we added another on top.

Thursday: We played again. We had fun.

Friday: We talked through our plan. Then, right before going onstage, my partner suggested a new one:

“Milk the opening if it works. Only go to the game if we need to.”

The drumbeats sounded. Our turn.

We entered.

The audience laughed once.

I thought, Aha! They’re laughing at me!

(Still kinda true: I set up something he executed.)

I did it again. No dice.

My partner panicked:

“We need to do the game!”

And before we even played the game, we were kicked off.

The Problem

I loved rehearsing with him. Genuinely. It was a highlight of my week.

But when I entered the stage, I didn’t open myself. I didn’t share with the audience enough pleasure of being on stage.

And so: I wasn’t lovable.

I’ve only opened myself once on stage. People found me beautiful.

How do I get back there?

Is this lack of openness also a problem in my relationships?

Am I in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing?

Is this biomedical?

Will clown school eventually teach me to play well with others?

Right now, I feel like a lonely, isolated lump of clay.

An ugly one.

It’s not fun to feel like an ugly lump of clay.

Maybe if I did therapy for an hour every day, I’d get better at opening myself. Then I just do that on stage, but lighter.

If the hypothesis is that success comes from being open and light and generous, then at least the openness part is something I can train on my own.

Once my father leaves on Tuesday, I’ll try that.

I’m not leaving yet. The clay’s still on the wheel.

It’s really. Not fun. To be clay.

💩

Also, two students told me they thought Head Teacher was unfair — that I’d actually been beautiful. I trust the opinions of the expert few over the uninformed many. Still, something relaxed in me when I heard that. This must be why people commiserate.

Comments About Me

“Who do we like? We like [my scene partner].”

“You are not beautiful.”

“Do we love him? Not at all.”

“When Julian enter, was he with [Scene Partner] or was he alone?” Audience: “Alone.”

“Zero, zero, zero.”

Learnings

  • Start with the fun part.
  • Stick to the plan. You made it for a reason. (Definitely don’t abandon the plan shortly before going on stage.)
  • Learn that it’s pleasant to be open.

My French classmate learned this. Others have too.

So why the hell is it so hard for me?

I even had a potentially fruitful relationship recently undermined because of this non-openness.

Do I like this? Am I choosing contexts that reinforce it?

After class, one of my peers said:

“I feel joy when I open myself on stage.”

He meant it kindly. I appreciated it.

I just don’t fucking know how.

This isn’t about wanting to. It’s a skill gap.

And it’s funny — my teacher said I’m best when I’m subtle and open, not when I’m pushing.

And now all I want to do is push.

So maybe I should just… give up?

That can’t be right.

Fuck if I know.

A friend who knows me very well commented on these last three lines: “fuck off. Don’t you play better when you’re down 2 and 0? Congrats, you’re now down 2 and 0.”

This must be why people share their emotions.

Clown School Day 16: Crying Beautifully

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In which Our Hero is the Major

It’s nice to be celebrated for crying.

The exercise is simple: receive the ball from your friend → thank your friend → declare with the vigor of a leading actor, “[Loved one], look at me: I’m the major!”

Most people fail for being too small: instantly kicked off, banished forever, like too-polite ghosts. In the summer course, I had been one of those, kicked off after one word.

Not wanting to befall this fate, I powered hard in the other direction.

After receiving the ball and thanking my friend, I turned to the audience, pulled out all the stops, and loosed a booming “YAYAAAAA!!!”

Students flinched in fear.

Head Teacher provided me lines to repeat back:

  • “I’m sorry, Yaya, for frightening you with my shouting.”

Then, Head Teacher dialed me in:

  • Softer
  • More open
  • Gentler
  • Less pushing
  • More subtle

When I had all the mechanics correct but was still missing joie de vivre, Head Teacher asked me who in the class I would want to kiss me. I chose a girl in the front row. Head Teacher asked, “Do you want another?” I said no, one is enough.

Then, whenever I spoke the text with all the mechanics correct but insufficient relaxed openness, Head Teacher signaled this classmate to kiss me on the neck. Later, classmates told me the kiss had opened me up: It stopped me from pushing so hard. I was, perhaps, trying to be liked. If I just sit back and show people who I am, it turns out they find me beautiful.

Eventually, as I opened up, tears began to fall. Not just mine. I saw tears in at least one audience member’s eyes.

What is this releasing? Is it a sadness or a joy or a wonder or a beauty? Is it the physical manifestation of pain being shared?

It reminded me of two events:

  • One, crying in my parents’ shower seven years ago. I had just ended the most significant relationship of my life and was scouring my gut with steel wool, knocking off barnacles attached from that pain.
  • Two, at Burning Man around that same time. Watching the Temple burn, I mourned the end of that relationship and grieved the pain it had caused me.

The first happened in private. The second happened in public. And bawling at Burning Man, surrounded by fifty thousand people, the funniest thing happened:

Everybody kept trying to help. Some offered a tissue; others provided a shushing noise. Well-meaning people, but they were soothing their own discomfort, not mine. Mine wasn’t discomfort. Mine was comfort for the first time in a decade. My tears were the powerful release of pain. And others, in wanting to help, tried to pull me back into their pool of internalized pain.

I’ve had a philosophy since that experience: people who are grieving should be allowed to lead. Sit with them; offer them your kind presence; maybe a hand to hold if they want to. But let them lead. Even that hand-holding is more likely to be top-down controlling than actually helpful and kind. Let them take care of themselves. You are there to serve.

Here, on stage, it was nice to finally be rewarded for my raw, open emotion. To show that rawness and have it accepted. Not just any rawness: it had to be loving (directed at Yaya) and relaxedly pleasurable (from the kiss). But still, a context in which to share my experience. To share my feelings. To share my pain.

If you have deep pain, we’ll accept that here — so long as you offer it as a light, open gift.

Four minutes on stage. One of three people who cried during the exercise. Described as a “breakthrough” by a fellow student.

It’s intoxicating.

Satisfying.

Nice to be alive.

And delightful

to be celebrated

for being myself.

—

Yaya, today, I was the major.

Clown School Day 13: Who’s The Laugh For?

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero learns to give himself away.

Is giving giving?

We created a mob on stage. One leader, fifteen followers. The leader was in Major: loud, powerful, commanding, tall. The followers were in Minor: following along with the Major’s game.

The leader’s task: move for the group. Then, if successful, speak for the group.

Here’s the kicker:

We — the audience — could easily see when the leader was playing for others and when they were playing for themselves. Too delighted by your own words? Too much for yourself. Too fast, too slow, too complicated, too boring? All of it = no good.

It was fucking cool.

It wasn’t just obvious when a leader played for themselves: we could even separate which parts they did for themselves. Some moved for themselves but spoke for the group. Others spoke for themselves but moved for the group.

Me? I moved for the group until I started speaking. Then I spoke for the group but failed to move for them.

The magnetism of a Major doing for others was inescapable. It drew us in — as the audience — as though they were playing for us, too.

I keep wondering what “giving” really is. Is it enough that someone is giving to someone? Or must they somehow give to each person? The latter seems impossible: no one can give individually to a 3,000-person crowd. But you can give, and keep giving, and keep giving…

—

I thought about that today when I found myself in a spat with a friend. They argued — accurately — that I’d been laughing for myself, not for them. And they found that objectionable.

At a minimum, they were fair (jury’s still out on them being right ;). Maybe I’ve found too few people laughing for me, so I learned to laugh for myself. Whatever the reason, it’s unhelpful — on stage and in friendship alike.

That’s why I’m here at clown school:

because I’m a guarded, frightened, closed, selfish, winning-focused person

trying to open up.

—

It’s hard to give and share and open and keep giving in this ever-present openness.

First-year classes are often “weeder” classes — designed to weed out those who aren’t a fit. In college, I lasted one day in Theater 101 before switching to philosophy. Theater 101 was dry history; philosophy had rigor and use.

I wonder if theater students who truly love it endure that drudgery because they care so much about reaching the next level — the acting classes, the real thing.

Here, too, I’m pushing through the bullshit, the trials, the endless tests: chasing skill.

The teachers keep throwing more at you, more and more, just to see who will break.

Those who break aren’t meant to be clowns.

And maybe I’m not meant to be one either.

So I’ll grab what I can from this pressure cooker,

gather the small diamonds I find,

and fuse them with other gold I’ve picked up along the way,

to form

my own

crown of jewels.