In which Our Hero muses on the interaction of these forces.
The question came up at dinner: What’s the relationship between play and depression? Is play the antidote? Is the lack of play the cause? Or are they simply two dancers who keep stepping on each other’s toes?
My take:
I love Play. Play is enlivening and delightful and deeply satisfying.
Play is a sign of a healthy environment: one that nurtures the growth and expression of its members.
Some environments don’t require play or can’t support it, especially high-stress or high-stakes ones in intense moments.
If you lack play long enough, you will feel like crap.
If you can’t play with people, you won’t feel good around those people.
Blockers to play:
Lack of safety. If you can’t experiment or express, you shrink. The body contracts. The options narrow. The world gets small.
I often think of depression as a kind of flatness. A greying-out of inner movement. And a lot of what prevents play, at least in my own experience, is fear/anxiety. So the loop becomes: fear/anxiety → no play → depression. It’s not the only description of the loop, but it’s a fair one.
Another view:
Maybe depression is fundamentally the lack of experienced pleasure.
If that’s true, then you can find pleasure through play. But also through other avenues, including observation and appreciation.
In that framing, play is one antidote, but not the only one. (And it may not be the proper antidote for a specific situation, nor a permanent fix.)
Still, I think social play is necessary for social satisfaction. It’s a treadmill you have to keep running on—just enough—for the system to stay stable. Stop for too long, and you get flung off the end, cascading into a wall of lonesomeness. Start running again, and the world comes back into color.
However, you can’t force play. You can only create the context for it to naturally emerge. Even if you’re a player? Even if you’re the game.
In which Our Hero gently invites his classmates to find pleasure in their fear.
[I wrote this earlier today, before a long and insightful conversation with my roommate. By the vacillations of clown school, I’m not sure how much I still endorse or will endorse tomorrow. How’s that for a cop-out? 🤡]
Another shit day at clown school. I should frighten other students more.
Listen:
Earlier today we were playing dodgeball. Someone on the opposing team had the ball and motioned toward me. I ran away, bumped into a teammate, and she let out a startled little yelp, plus an admonishment along the lines of “come on guys, it’s a game.”
Later in that same match, I leapt to grab a ball, robbing the opposing team of a catch, like stealing a home run but dodgeball-style. A player said, “Chill out.” The first person would probably call themselves unathletic. The second, not very competitive.
Okay.
Sure.
What of it?
Sidebar: clown school is populated far more by theatre nerds than athletes. I’m probably the best all-around athlete in my class—not the strongest or tallest, just the one with the most hunger to win and the actual ability to put that into reality. So why is it not showing up?
After her yelp, I shrank back. I became smaller, gentler, duller. I had less fun.
But realistically? A little bump between teammates in dodgeball is not a big deal. No one fell. No one got hurt. It was a collision between two moving bodies in a game whose entire premise is hurling projectiles at each other.
The recent American neurosis of “don’t cause anyone fear ever” does not help me here. Hurting people would be bad. Frightening them? Not inherently. If two people bump into each other while playing dodgeball, the appropriate move is some sort of affectionate “eh, no worries love”.
But I’ve been avoiding frightening people. And it’s getting in the way of my clowning.
The first time I truly succeeded on stage was when I FINALLY LET LOOSE. A demon burst out of my sternum and shat poop-colored rainbows across the stage.
The teacher told me to tone it down, apologize, and bring the same energy with more sensitivity.
The second time I started from a light, airy emotional place: gentle by nature, and the power followed.
Today the feedback is that I lack impulse. And the truth is: I felt it. In the afternoon class, I wasn’t powering with impulse at all. I was stuck in my head, nitpicking the pedagogy (correctly, but uselessly). I couldn’t find pleasure in anything.
I hate being in this oscillation space.
My roommate disagrees with my whole “frighten them more” instinct. He thinks I’m conflating playing intensely with playing to win (and that playing to win will necessarily not maximize group pleasure). He says I lack a lightness—a tiny joke kept in the back of my mind.
And maybe he’s right. On stage today, I lost the game. I forgot the game. I played it well for a few minutes. Then I forgot it.
Never forget the game.
Look.
When I do have impulse, people get scared. That’s the truth. I’m intense. When I try to win at dodgeball, people get quiet and the light, floaty vibe evaporates. Today I had the ball, and an opponent squared up. I pump-faked twice. Then I whammed him.
During that exchange, the room went silent. The airy part of the game vanished.
Did it become another kind of fun?
Is it not fun to watch two gladiators square off? To see combatants toy with another in a spirit of agreed-upon play? Isn’t that a form of respect—acknowledging we both have power and we’re choosing to use it?
Maybe the audience wasn’t laughing. Maybe they were leaning in. I don’t know. Maybe I’m justifying.
Maybe I should scale it: go hard against the skilled players, soften against the less-skilled. A consent-based approach to dodgeball. (Unless I’m the last one alive. Then it’s win, win, win.)
I don’t know whether it was pleasant to watch me whang that guy. I imagine it was.
I’m six feet tall, bearded, and frequently voracious. Of course people are scared of me. Underneath any coverings I add (silliness, friendliness, gentleness), they may always feel some amount of fear.
But maybe their fear isn’t a reason for me to shrink.
Maybe their fear is something they get to deal with.
Because otherwise, I become small and boring. I lose my impulse. And that is absolutely not fun for me.
Fear without safety is fear. Fear with safety is exhilaration.
I guess I need to give people that safety.
To clearly show this is a joke. This whole thing is silly. Show them in a way that’s obvious to them: I’m not taking myself too seriously: the thing I’m doing is a joke. And that way, when you fear me, you also feel safe around me. And that way, even though you fear me; even though you respect me and my intensity, you love me.
Would you rather I be too much or too little?
Right now, at school, too much. They can work with too much. Too little just gets kicked off.
In which Our Hero sleeps, sins, and seeks salvation.
At the end of this week, I’m a quarter of the way through this program. That’s wild. Three times as much left as what I’ve already done. No wonder it feels like I’ve lived six different emotional lifetimes.
I told my sister today about our daily Simon Says game. It’s brilliantly constructed. It’s also deranged.
Here’s how it works: when you make a mistake, you must seek absolution. You get to choose your method of redemption. The menu:
Hug
Kiss
Swedish handshake
Nothing
Or… torture
If you choose “nothing,” nothing happens. If you choose “torture,” one of the teachers (or a friend, if you prefer) faux-tortures you in front of the class. If you choose one of the other options, you turn to a peer and ask, “Can I have a [hug/kiss/handshake]?”
If they say “yes,” you receive absolution.
If they say anything else—literally anything: “yep” is interpreted as “go to hell”—you get tortured.
My sister was horrified. Honestly, same. The first time we played, I felt like I’d accidentally joined a cult that prioritizes whimsy over human rights. And yet…it works. The faux-torture weirdly brings us together. There’s something intimate about placing your fate in someone else’s hands and trusting they’ll either help you or throw you to the wolves. (And, sometimes we just choose the torture directly: our Assistant Teacher is an exquisite tickler.)
My sister asked why people don’t always say “yes.” Partially because we’re learning how to ask and receive asks well. So if you ask poorly (not loud enough; emotionally closed; selfish), your odds plummet. And partially because, well, that’s the game.
—
Last night, for the first time in ages, I slept well. Deeply. My room traps CO₂, so I’ve been sleeping poorly. Last night I cracked open both the window and the shutters. Oxygen: acquired. Primitive problem, elegant solution.
I don’t have much to write about today. My energy feels softer, steadier.
One woman in class has been struggling to find a lower, more powerful voice. Our assistant teacher stood behind her and performed a kind of gentle, low Heimlich maneuver while she screamed “FUCK YOU, [Head Teacher]!” at full volume. It helped. Theatre is strange medicine.
We also explored two new “substances”: oil/petrol/gasoline and superglue. I’m tired of this exercise. Some classmates love it; I don’t. Maybe that’s the point: finding joy in an approach I don’t naturally love. I can learn it. I just don’t yet.
—
I found a partner for Friday’s scene. The task: play contrasting characters who always agree. Hot, fast, smoky oil in perfect harmony with gentle, falling snow: two beings that shouldn’t coexist and yet do.
It might be funny. It might be a disaster. That’s clown school.
—
My goal this week is simple and impossible: be sensitive, be open, be gentle: with my partners, with the audience, with myself. I’ll do the exercises, but the real work is internal.
Do I have pleasure? If so, am I sharing it with the audience? If so, am I sharing it with my partner? Am I playing together, or am I playing alone?
Clown school is hard. But at least I slept. And maybe—just maybe—I’ve solved my CO₂ problem.
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.
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.
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.
Not “You’re being a fascist.” Not “You’re pushing again.” But: You were sensitive. You were open. You were beautiful.
This has been my quest for the last four or five days: trying to soften without collapsing, open without weighing down, give without pushing. So when the assistant teacher said she could tell I’d been trying to be sensitive, something in me loosened. Like the wall I’ve been kicking finally cracked.
They then called “Julian and four others” onto the stage. And somewhere in that transition, I started crying. I don’t remember the moment. The whole experience became one.
The exercise was “snow.”
The teacher gave a confusing description of snow. Something like: “It’s the kind of snow that shuts down a city.”
Which… is just a quantity of snow. That’s not an image; that’s an amount.
So I asked a question that she didn’t answer. And then I started being snow. I grabbed an image that moves me: Lorelai in the first season of Gilmore Girls, stepping outside as the first snow falls. That little gasp, the cup of coffee, the anticipatory thrill, the “I smell snow.”
That image speaks to me. So I used it.
They asked for lighter. I moved lighter. They asked for less movement. I slowed down. And then the crying came—like a release of walls I didn’t even know I was holding.
I felt open. Present. Immersed. And I tried to stay there as long as I could. Even after class, I tried to keep it alive. I wandered to a café because it felt like “the present thing to do.” Then I left, because that also felt present. Then I ran into classmates outside the café, so I went back in. Presence, it turns out, has a sense of humor.
Then, I called a friend. That was hard.
It felt like I came home excited that I’d thrown a baseball for the first time—look, look, I did the thing!—and they said, “Careful not to break a window.”
Not malicious. Just… a mismatch. And when you’ve just cracked open a new emotional door, mismatches hurt more.
After class, one of the teachers said: “You were very sensitive, and very beautiful. You had an intensity—but it wasn’t bad.”
I laughed at that. I’m glad it isn’t bad, because my intensity ain’t going away.
Later, I asked the teacher, “Did I do it? Did I actually finally successfully give?” She didn’t answer directly. She asked, “Were you sensitive? What did you feel?”
Here’s my experience: On stage without my glasses, I am legally blind. I couldn’t see anyone. I didn’t listen to them either. The audience was mere shapes. Just the snow and me. And once in a while, a teacher’s comment.
So if the question is “were you sensitive to the audience?”, the answer is no. I was literally senseless. Ah clown school: you ironic farce.
They don’t mean sensitive. They might mean gentle. One way to arrive at sensitive is to notice that you’re too much for the audience. Another, apparently, is to channel the perfect childhood you never had in idyllic smalltown America.
Sometimes total silence is a good sign, the teacher said. It means the audience is engaged. “A quiet room can be as good as a laughing one. No one doing this [shuffling around, moving in their seat]”.
Earlier in the day, I channeled a storm. They told me I looked “obsessed with the game.” I laughed. “This was the least obsessed I’ve been in days. I literally set myself the gentle mantra, ‘This is for you[, audience]‘”. Light. Open. Giving.
The feedback wasn’t about my intention; it was about my appearance. They saw obsessed. I must change that appearance.
Perhaps I need extra lightness to counterbalance my baseline intensity. Some people need more power or voice. I might need 10x the gentleness.
After class, a fellow student said to me: “Good on you for staying up there. You could have sat down.”
My brow furrowed. Sat down? Why would I sit down? That made zero sense.
This is bottom of the ninth and I’m pitching a no hitter. I will remain here until you drag me off this mound.
It’s funny what other people reveal about themselves when they comment on you.
Somehow, after I left the stage, the right person knew I needed a hug. He gave me one. And, lo and behold, it was good.
All afternoon I kept trying to hold the feeling: café, walk home, phone calls. I wanted to stay cracked open. Even though it’s uncomfortable? Especially because it’s uncomfortable.
I did my first cartwheel today. I went up as the guinea pig because I wanted more than anything not to.
Somewhere in all of this, I realized: This experience with snow is a metaphor of the friction I’ve been having with the social life of clown school. Pushing instead of being sensitive. Wanting to give but not meeting others where they are. The effort to be open met with a congratulations about remaining on stage or a warning about windows.
What next? Maybe the answer is simply: more on-stage openness. Maybe I’ll find some new challenge.
But today, for a moment, I did it. I gave what they’ve been telling me to give. I didn’t perform emotion. Nor pretend. Nor simulate. Nor mimic.
I was open. Light. Warm. Gentle. Like the first snow And it’s You.
Because this snow. This tiny, infinitesimal flake of snow. If you do it enough. Could cover the world.
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:
Give it directly. Too pushy.
Increase my own pleasure. Too self-contained.
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.
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.
“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.”
Julian Wise 