Tag: Mental Health

“Everything is hard in New York City” (Feb 5 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero prompts anger and ridicule. 

I’ve heard this said many times. Probably 3 times in the last 2 weeks, and many times before. And I… like… don’t believe it? 

Two days ago, my partner wanted to schedule a doctor’s appointment. She called the specific practice she desired, best in the country for the thing she cares about. They booked her for Thursday (9 days out). Then, she asked if they had a cancellation list she could be on to get anything sooner. The scheduler offered her the following day (yesterday) at 10am. She attended the appointment with great success. That doesn’t sound hard to me. AND, this is a medical function that NYC residents most say can be hard to get into. 

What do I think is actually happening? Options: 

  1. There is so much to do. The City is an endless treasure trove of possibilities. In a normal city, you might want to do 3 things aside from work on a given day. In New York, you might want to do 8. 
  2. Some things *do* take much longer. Yesterday, I moved a couch from a third-floor walkup. A third-floor walkup is not something that even exists in many parts of the country! Transporting the couch to my truck took ~50 minutes. Compare that to the ~15 minutes it took me to transport a much-heavier bedframe to that same truck. But the bedframe was in an elevator building. (Driving, too, can take forever. But most of the time, you won’t drive. And the subway is very speedy. (And most Americans are used to driving forever anyway.))
    1. Waiting in line can take forever. If you want to attend a specific show, you might have to get in line for tickets 3+ hours before the ticket purchase opens. 
  3. The people feel squeezed and stressed, so the difficulty of doing things becomes much more. When you work an intense 9-5 that really works you from 8-6:30 (or in some cases 7am – 8pm), you have brief evenings and weekends for both errands and all the life you want to squeeze out of New York. 
  4. Rent *is* really fucking expensive. Therefore, you are much more likely to feel squeezed. But that doesn’t make things themselves harder. It just makes you uniquely susceptible to 1) feeling like you can’t give up that 7am-8pm job, and 2) feeling like everything in your life is intense. 

Over the last week, these are things my partner or I have done with less than 12 hours from conception to completion: 

  1. Bought 4 slices of 4.5-star New York pizza for $5.99
  2. Scheduled and picked up for ~1/3rd of retail cost:
    1. A like-new minifridge 
    2. A robot vacuum & mop
  3. Scheduled and picked up for free:
    1. Bedframe with sidetable and drawers 
    2. Coffee table
    3. Desk
    4. Peloton shoes of exactly my partner’s size 
    5. Wheeled dolly 
    6. Vacuum
    7. Plates/cups/mugs/silverware
    8. Blender
    9. Microwave
    10. 2 large-size instantpots
    11. 3 plush chairs
    12. 1 plush comfy chair 
    13. 1 large L-shaped couch
    14. 1 desk chair
    15. 1 gaming chair

That doesn’t sound like it’s difficult to do things. That sounds like some things are difficult to do. (Getting into one of the elite public schools? Fuggaddabouttit!) And when the line at grocery checkout is 50 people long (as it sometimes is), you might think it’s hard to go grocery shopping. But there are 25 open checkout stations, so that line is really equivalent to only 2 people in front of you. 

So far, New York has been kind and hospitable. Yes, there was a threatening person in front of my building who followed me inside 2 days ago. But hey, isn’t that culture? 

Mellow and Dramatic (Jan 26 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero mellows in the drama 

Today was the first day of the second term. I’m not there. I’m in Etampes, four minutes walk from the school. I walked earlier today by the train station cafe that doubles as the student haunt. Yet I’m not there. Do I miss it? 

Today my mother and I dawdled down a classic Parisian street. Over lunch we swapped plates four times so we could experience what the other was eating. An Eastern European tourist offered us alcohol at Jim Morrison‘s tombstone. A California native gushed his worries about American politics 10 feet away from Molière corpse. 

This evening, my housing purchase was confirmed. After 8 years nomadic (homeless?), it’s time to put down roots. My partner ordered a bed for the empty apartment. I ordered locks for the doors. We’re buying one way flights like we always do, only this time they’re to home. 

The clown course I’m missing is melodrama. A fellow student once told me that melodrama is about stretching moments. What should be a five second stroll becomes ten minutes of dramatic, hyper-experienced anguish. 

Today stretched. From sprinting for the train to dashing through loan documentation, I was hyper present. Focused. Immersed. 

That’s one of the goals (or is it *the main goal* of clown school). Presence. Giving. Moving forward. 

I don’t miss melodrama. 

I’m excited for my life. 

Going Whole Hog (Jan 20 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which less risk it leads to less biscuit 

This upcoming Monday is the first day of spring term for clown school.

One student is going into immense debt for tuition.
Another student spent their inheritance to be here.
This school really must be something. 

I won’t be there. 

I’m not sure I committed to the school whole hog.
I committed with great intensity, sure. But underneath the intensity was an underlying “This isn’t my life. I’m not an actor/performer/clown. I’m here to learn the skills for myself, not for the purpose they’re teaching them.” 

This structure meant that some underlying part of me felt misfit.
The one course I was most intent on – Bouffon – drew me.
The foundational course Le Jeu also attracted.
The other courses I cared less for. 

Perhaps this disinterest led to a shallower relationship.
Pushing myself to achieve rather than it coming from an internal alignment. 

If my interests are aligned to my tastes and preferences,
Then my disinterest in some areas may not merely be cosmetic
But a substantive “go here and not there…” 

I’m most drawn to Bouffon for the outcast and grotesque.
First as a matter of my relationship to gender.
Later as a matter of my relationship to all. 

Greek tragedy: not so much. Melodrama, minorly. Vaudeville: sure. Mask play and clown: perhaps not. 

I don’t need to take everything or nothing.
I needn’t even take all the classes this year (as opposed to some the next).
That’s not the sort of whole hog I aim to be. 

Since all we ever have is now,
perhaps I align that way.

In the spirit of learning what kind of hog I am/I appear to others, I created an anonymous feedback form. If anything comes to mind, tell me!

Giblets (Jan 17 2026)

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero feels offal.

Just to the left of my navel, I learn a truth.
Not about facts or the world,
but about how a topic feels to me
I think this is what people mean when they say “follow your heart” or “speak from the heart”.
It troubled me for many years — still does — because that place is not my heart. It’s at least five inches below my heart, and two to the outside.

We also advise “trust your gut”. Is the place I found not my heart but my gut? Am I misusing each location for its maximally effective purpose? Follow your heart in love; trust your gut in business?

After casting about for a writing theme a few days ago, a friend suggested I write as the ideal version of me would.

Hemingway says write the most true sentence. Then the next true sentence.

The truth is, I feel scared. Not all of me, but a good 80%. I’m pushing and shoving toward the biggest financial decision of my life. I’ve capped my downside risk at an acceptable amount. I’ve run the numbers by family and friends more risk-averse than me. The answer is go.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It’s action while in the presence of fear. In this case, it’s encircling the fear with my flabby squeezers and hugging it while I jump the two of us jump into an abyss.
Most of the time, the bungee cord holds. Take a situation that would otherwise be frightening: if you add safety, it becomes thrilling.

The fear is not me. The fear is not anything. Both it and I are transient (that’s a pun).
I see why people turn to religion in times of stress.
God is what we call the experience of being healed. There’s something addictively reassuring – especially in our most fearful moments – in believing someone is looking out for you, sending positive outcomes your way.

Let us run then, you and I
As the sun surmounts the sky
The icy clovers frost with dew
Let us dive then: me and you.

I fear nothing, though fear is present.
Fear is my friend. I stand atop its shoulders.
Together, our future rolls out a carpet to greet us.

Roots, Post-Wings

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero plants a seed so grass may grow.

For the last 7 years, I’ve known my next destination only upon leaving my current one. The farthest ahead of time that I bought a plane ticket was one month, and I ended up changing that flight. More often, I’m choosing the next place less than a week ahead of time. 

In many ways, it’s magical: 

  1. Carrying everything I need on my back gives me complete self-sufficiency. Like a human turtle.
  2. Traveling light became a necessity. A dear friend has a tattoo that says “Travel light.” A good policy.
  3. I’ve learned to make friends quickly. When lost, I talk to strangers. When found, I do the same.
  4. I’ve shared small moments that mattered: teaching a baby to use an airplane tray table; splitting mangosteen with a man in Laos.
  5. Surprising reconnections: three people I knew in high school, all in northern Thailand. A man I met in Indonesia who later booked a room in my flat at clown school.
  6. Humans are the same everywhere. Then again, culture is real. 

In others, it’s tough: 

  1. Feeling unrooted. I’ve sacrificed depth for breadth. (Depth within breadth is its own type of depth. But it only goes so far.) 
  2. Insufficient community. The people you see every day or week are the people you build strong bonds with. 
  3. Lack of habit. I used to be a habitual person. Moving into a van really changes things. Selling the van without a new place to live changes things even more.  It’s hard to eat your normal daily breakfast when the monastery you’re visiting fasts until noon. 

Today I received the final document for my apartment purchase. I’d like to live there for a long time. I’d enjoy tacking my kids’ heights on the doorjamb until they eventually leave to find their own Laotian mangosteen. 

The deal isn’t done yet, and then there’s still renovations, so I’m hesitant to get too excited. 

But the yearning for stability is strong in me.

Clown School Break Day 51: Dumb, Dumb, Duh-dumb Dumb Dumb…  

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero, um, … um … um … 

I’ve been feeling dumber lately. Having trouble finding the right word. Finding myself thinking slower. What’s up with this?

Hypotheses: 

  1. Clowning makes one less intellectual
  2. The work that I’ve been doing has been effective, but not intellectually stimulating
  3. Something else

The first seems likely true. Does clowning make one less intellectual? Yes. Less intelligent? No. However, among the many types of intelligence, it does not contribute to improving one’s smartness. In fact, it teaches one to focus on pleasure and emotion to the detriment of smartness. Sacrifices must be made at the altar of pleasure! 

The second: also likely. I’ve recently been doing a lot of important and procedural, but not intellectual, work. (Among them: buying and renovating an apartment; writing articles that are squarely in my wheelhouse.)

The third: maybe it’s hormonal? The speed of my verbal fluency was stronger on œstrogen. ‘Twas notably stronger. And now, I have much more general go-go-go (whether that’s testosterone itself or simply my familiarity with the hormone, I’m not sure), but less verbal speed. I make fewer moves but each move is stronger.

Another option for the third: a life transition that requires adjustment. Selling my previous home. Buying a new one. Moving internationally. Building a relationship. All of these can wear you down. 

A final option for the third: lack of exercise. Since I broke my foot I have been a complete lazypants. The brain thrives on exercise. Perhaps it will return when the activity returns. This one seems very likely to be influential :!D

It’s an odd experience to feel myself being duller than I previously was. And the people around me aren’t noticing… or at least aren’t noticing enough to say anything.

Then again, would they notice? And if noticed, would they say? 👀

Clown School Break Day 37: Social Place

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero remains visible without belonging. 

Let’s talk about social place. 

In 2018, I bought a van. My most formative non-familial relationship was ending, and I was on a personal journey. 

I spent seven years seeking my place. Living in a van, driving around. My place had been shattered, my foundation upended. I sought the right group of people, the right social place. 

I found the regional Burning Man community. Not the community at the big Burning Man festival itself, but the smaller independent organizations that circle the same principles. I found, perhaps for the first time, a community that accepted me and to which I wanted to contribute. I made art that touched people’s lives. Some of them still speak about it, 5+ years later. 

I moved to New York City in search of a partner. Nearing 30, with my friends all partnering and beginning to spawn, my situation became one of “Is this a part of life you want to have? Because you can seek it later… but it’s much easier if you try now.” One woman broke my heart. I flew to Australia to write a play. Returning to New York a year later, I met my now-partner.  Our first date was 11 days long. For our second date, we drove across the country together. She sublet her apartment, and joined me in nomadicness for the last 2 years. 

I wonder sometimes about social place. I occupy an unusual position. Enough of a dilettante in most areas to be able to hold my own. Friendly and affable, generally found to be helpful, but without roots. 

For most of my childhood, I had a single dedicated friend. Schoolwork was trivial; most of my fellow students I found uninteresting. I’ve left each major experience with some dedicated friends. And a host of pleasant acquaintances, too. 

I’ve never really been a group guy. I have the sort of preference: “Instead of camping with your Burning Man group, how about I camp next to you and we hang out every day?”

If part of life is finding who you are and doing it on purpose, 

at some point it’s worth accepting that I’ve never found a group to be home. 

And probably never will. 

Perhaps my belonging is episodic, relational, and lateral (not collective). 

Still, sometimes it feels lonely. 

Clown School Break Day 36: Empty Spaces

JulianLeave a comment

In which emptiness permeates Our Hero. 

Today I drove in silence. My partner in the passenger seat, surrounded by calm empty space. 

Usually I drive with music or a podcast. This drive was 3.5 hours. 

For the first two hours, just being. 

Once in a while adding a comment. Saying something. Mostly quiet. 

It was nice. 

— 

It reminded me of some time spent on stage. The increased comfort that comes from increased experience. The greater ease that comes from an acceptance of emptiness. 

I’m reminded of the idea variously attributed to Miles Davis and other musical greats: playing the spaces between the notes. 

It’s pleasant to play the spaces between the notes. 

It’s even more enjoyable to let the spaces between the notes play. 

And then

To level up

To the notes themselves playing 

And you simply helping

😌 

Clown School Break Day 31: To Universal Acclaim

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero smiles at the received positivity. 

A friend of my father’s recommended a game today. She reads my daily blog and, since she knows my love for poker and my interest in cooperative games, she linked over a cooperative poker game. Today my family played it. We had a blast. A new favorite. One for the ages. Such glee.

We sent her a video indicating our excitement. She’s glad we’re glad. We’re glad she’s glad. She’s glad that we’re glad that she’s glad. Etc.

I’m glad my daily blog is having such positive impact. With dozens of daily readers, I’m clearly having a positive impact. And the fact that I’ve received recently a bunch of unexpected positive feedback suggests I’m doing something right. I’m also glad that I have people around me who would tell me honestly if they thought something negative about it. But they don’t, so everyone must like it.

—

It’s a game about accurately ranking your poker hands compared to the other players’ hands. You win or lose as a team: either your whole ranking is accurate or it’s not. Play is simple: you rank preflop, then on the flop, turn, and river. Only the river rankings matter: if they’re correct, you all win. If they’re not, you all lose.

A few lessons:

  1. It’s hard to navigate small discrepancies. 8,7 vs 8,6 is nearly impossible to distinguish if no 7 or 6 comes on the board.
  2. Personal proclivities abound. One person’s confident grab of the top rank preflop means only pocket tens or better, while another’s may be Ace-9.
  3. Have fun. This means A) When a conflict arises, diagnose it accurately (was the problem really on the river, or did this stem from preflop?); and B) when you feel uncomfortable, say “I feel uncomfortable”. It’s shocking how well people respond when you simply say “I feel uncomfortable”.

—

I’ve been writing a daily blog about clown school. I suspect (but don’t know) that plenty of my peers read this blog. As yet, no one has said “I feel uncomfortable”. That’s nice. Guess I’ll continue 🙂 

Clown School Break Day 16: Cooperative Games

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero remembers the audience and the performer are on the same team.

Today I didn’t buy a painting.

I could have.
There are worlds in which I walk out of that studio holding a canvas, or at least a print. I like his work. It’s good enough that I’d happily see it on my wall. I also, frankly, think this guy could be very successful. And while I don’t know anything about investing in art, I do know that he does good work. 

Instead of buying, I did something arguably more valuable: I gave him one mental shift that might change the way he sells forever (hard-won after nine years of being a creative freelancer myself). 

The shift was this:

  • You and the buyer are on the same team, trying to get to the sale together.

Most artists don’t think that way. They imagine selling as hoodwinking, convincing, persuading. Commerce as a low-grade con.

But when I exchange $20 for a meal, two true things are happening at once:

  • I am saying, “I’d rather have this meal than this $20.”
  • The seller is saying, “I’d rather have this $20 than this meal.”

We both win. That’s the point.

If someone wanders into your studio already 50% likely to buy your painting, wouldn’t you both be better off if a sale happens?

That’s what my friend was missing. He felt like he was pushing against the customer, trying to “get them” to buy, and he hated it. Instead, he should walk next to them, shoulder to shoulder, helping the buyer cross the line they already half-want to cross.

Sales, at least for an honest artist, is a cooperative game.

Clowning is the same game

This is also the part that many performing artists (including clowns) forget: the audience wants you to succeed.

When we audience members sit down for standup, for a play, for a clown show, we’re not secretly hoping it’s terrible so we can be right about humanity’s decline. We might predict it will be bad, but given the choice between:

  • “I knew it would suck,” and
    “It blew my expectations out of the water,”

almost everyone would rather be wrong and delighted.

Even the pessimists would rather go home saying, “Honestly, it was great.”

So performance is also a cooperative game:

  • As the clown, you are the leader.
  • The audience is your team.
  • The “sale” you’re closing together is shared pleasure.

You’re not dragging them, hostage-style, toward your weird art. You’re inviting them into something – pleasure – they already came to find.

This, unfortunately, is not my default setting.

Competitive games vs cooperative games

I am more experienced with competitive games than cooperative ones. Poker, for instance, is the opposite:

  • There, the goal is to hide.
  • To show nothing.
  • To give away as little information as possible while extracting as much value as possible.

Clowning is about the inverse:

  • Openness instead of secrecy.
  • Generosity instead of extraction.
  • “Let’s enjoy this together” instead of “Let me get the best of you.”

One of the purposes of clown school (for me) is to re-train this reflex. To make cooperation feel as natural as competition.

Right now, the questions I’m wrestling with include:

  1. How do I lead the team gently?
    Guide the audience without shoving, nudge without bullying, care for each teammate without over-focusing on any one.
  2. How do I actually lead, instead of hiding behind stronger personalities?
    Be the tip of the spear, not the person comfortably in the second row.
  3. When I’m with a partner on stage, how do I treat them as a collaborator instead of a combatant?
    Remember that “winning” is making the scene sing, and that often occurs when you’re playing harmoniously. 
  4. How do I remain open when uncomfortable?
    Oftentimes, I’m shutting down. And that… is not… helpful. 😦 

These are not just stage problems. They’re life problems. Which brings us to the cocktail party.

When I forgot we were on the same team

At a cocktail party today, I met a few people I genuinely liked. Smart, funny, curious. The kind of people I’d happily see again.

They asked about my relationship status. I told them a technically-true (and engaging), but far-more-boring version.

Here’s what I told them: 

In college, I was interested in a girl who was dating a woman. A friend told me she only dated women, so I filed that away as “ah well, not for me.”

Ten years later, we reconnected. It turned out my friend had been wrong:

  • She does not, in fact, only date women.

And here’s the part I didn’t share – not because it’s shameful, but because it’s intimate, and intimacy is precisely what I tend to withhold when I get scared: 

  • At the time of meeting her, I was taking exogenous estrogen. I had grown breasts. My emotional life was much closer to that of a woman than a man. 

So even if she had only dated women, I still might have qualified.

That’s the good bit. The twist ending. The painting on the wall I could have offered.

Instead, I hid it. I offered the flat version. And therefore, the next bit that I added – when I later tried to connect – didn’t land. I’d already collapsed into myself, ending the cooperative game. 

I protected information, staying “safe”.
But they weren’t my opponents. They were potential teammates. We were building something delightful together. And that collapse — the retreat instead of the play — is exactly the reflex I’m trying to rewire.

(To be clear, the issue wasn’t that I “should have” told strangers something deeply personal. It’s that I noticed myself collapsing inward even though both they and I wanted to play, to connect, to stay in the cooperative game.)

The update

So: today I didn’t buy a painting.
I also didn’t honestly sell myself.

In both cases, the correction is the same:

  • Be in situations where we’re on the same side. 
  • Remember we’re on the same side.
  • Act like the game is cooperative.
  • Offer the real story, not the safe one.

When I become excellent at those in daily life, I’ll be a better clown.
And when I become a better clown, maybe I’ll finally remember, in the moment, that we all walked into the room wanting the same thing:To leave having created shared pleasure.
And in that pleasure, created Value.