Tag: Writing

Clown School Day 24: Snowfall

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero melts.

Today I finally heard it:
“You were sensitive.”

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]”.

Yaya, today, I was sensitive. I did it right, entirely without sight. Senseless, yet somehow more sensitive.

Clown school, you rascal.

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.

Clown School Day 23: Everybody Wants a Little Slice

JulianLeave a comment

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

JulianLeave a comment

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 21: Enter Neutral Mask

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero proves that knowing is not the same as doing.

Yesterday, I wrote a taxonomy of clown-school terms.

Today, I flopped.

Intellectual knowing is not the same as embodied knowing.

We say “those who can’t do, teach,” but that’s too glib. Some teachers are former doers; some are doers making rent; and some—well, maybe they can’t do, but they sure can see.

My ability to coach clowning probably exceeds my ability to be a clown.

Partly because I’m a better theoretician than performer writ large.

Partly because certain psychological or emotional doors in me are still locked.

Today in class, our Head Teacher said it was obvious that I was still saying the text—in my head. Which is an insane read. She’s right, though: I was silently saying the words instead of placing them gently atop the game.

That’s fucking wild. How can someone see that? And what does that even have to do with clowning?

Maybe everything. Maybe the moment you’re “thinking” instead of being, you’ve already left the game.

Today we began Neutral Mask.

You wear a mask so we can’t see your face. You imitate water: you see a beautiful lake, feel yourself becoming water, then add text on top of the game.

Here’s what hit me:

Clown school is really fucking tough.

Denser than any Yale course I ever took.

Four weeks of relentless concepts, barely time to digest one before the next arrives.

It’s like going to art school and having one day on each primary color, one day on mixing, one day on three-point perspective, and then being told to paint the Sistine Chapel.

And when you mess up, they just tell you how you failed.

But it’s a brilliant method for a school that wants to produce a thousand different clowns.

The system that made Emma Thompson, Roberto Benigni, Sacha Baron Cohen (who all on his own has a host of diverse characters, including Borat, Bruno, and Ali G) isn’t designed to give you one formula. It’s designed to force you to find your own.

So now I shall learn the Neutral Mask.

Tomorrow, we become fire. Or air. Or despair.

And maybe one of my small discoveries from Le Jeu holds:

I love doing impressions, especially voices.

Maybe that’s part of my clown.

Maybe that’s mine to remember.

Because it’s all mine to choose. And all mine to learn.

🤡

Clown School Weekend 4.2: Clowning is Serious Taxonomical Business

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero undertakes a herculean task (probably the one about shoveling poop)

I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to reverse-engineer the game we’ve been playing at clown school.

If we think of clowning as a game, what are the rules of that game?

I’ve started building a taxonomy — a kind of manual of play — mapping what seems to make pleasure multiply on stage: impulses, generosity, major/minor dynamics, how to avoid destroying your play, and so on.

It’s still a work-in-progress (I’m sharing it with classmates to stress-test it before publishing the full version).

But the process of writing it has already clarified a few things for me:

  • The clown’s “goal” isn’t to win — it’s to maximize total pleasure (without harm).
  • Pleasure is contagious; it’s the currency of play.
  • When you’re failing, contribute to the game and share your pleasure (don’t try to be funny or clever)

I’ll publish the full taxonomy soon. For now, there’s a little taste of what’s coming — and a reminder that even codifying play is, itself, a kind of game.

P.S. If you’ve ever tried to articulate something that resists articulation, you’ll understand how funny this exercise becomes.

Or, put another way: sometimes people ask me, “What is the point of your Yale philosophy degree?” Now I can say: “I made you a taxonomy of Clowning!”

Clown School Day 20: Le Jeu (Game) Over

JulianLeave a comment

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 18: You Must Play the Game

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In which Our Hero misquotes Shakespeare.

“This above all: to thine own game be true.” —Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 3.

It’s very easy to forget the game.

But the game is the most important thing.

Some performance is only game. Tennis, for instance, is only game: and look how much money that earns.

The Rehearsal

My scene partner and I rehearsed today. We lacked pleasure because we had forgotten the game.

The original game was simple: I make my partner lick a thing. Like when children find a bug and dare each other to eat it.

It wasn’t fun anymore. We knew it was coming. We knew he would do it. There was no tension, no conflict.

So we changed it.

Now, we begin with a eulogy for a piece of the space: “We are gathered here today to say goodbye to the power outlet.”

Then we play rock-paper-scissors.

The loser, as a ritual of farewell, must lick it.

As the scene escalates, so do the lickables. The floor. The bottom of a shoe. The teacher.

We didn’t have a game. Now we have a game.

The game? Rock-paper-scissors.

But with stakes!

The Farce

In Improv class, I realized the rule applies to everything.

We played a farce: a train compartment. One person enters, perfectly normal except for one grotesque tic. They repeat it. Then a second person enters, takes pleasure from that game, and — after a long time enjoying their tic (longer than you think) — adds their own tic, heightening the first. Then a third person. Then a fourth.

The game is simple: take the game from the person before you, heighten it through your play, and pass it on.

Simple is nice.

Simple is hard.

You have to feel the scene. Is it falling down? Are you talking over the game with “train compartment” nonsense? Are you heightening or dominating or smothering?

When everyone played the game, the farce appeared by itself.

When someone forgot, everything froze.

The game makes the show. Always has. Always will.

The Handstand

This morning, I flipped upside-down.

My first handstand (wall-assisted), then onto a peer’s back, who rolled me forward, turning us both into a ball.

A new game: gravity as partner.

I’d forgotten the joy of inversion.

The Father

My father arrived in Étampes today. He wants more than anything to see a class.

I’d love to have him: to share my play space. The school forbids it.

No visitors, no cameras, no phones. We even sign a “no recording” oath, like monks taking vows.

Why so strict?

Because clowning is vulnerable.

I’ve seen people bare grief. I’ve seen them make absolute fools of themselves (and not the good kind).

Once, a student scraped his false teeth along the floor before popping them back in. The room gasped. Disgust and horror.

Once, I yelled at the teacher. Their instruction felt like trash; maybe provoking me was the point.

This isn’t for YouTube. This is for us.

The school protects its game.

It keeps the outside world out, so the play inside can live.

The Lesson

The game is everything: the lick, the tic, the flip, the secret room.

When you forget the game, everything dies.

When you play it, life appears.

Protect the space so you can play the game.

Then find the game.

Release all else.

Play the game.

And when you lose it, start again.

That’s what makes it a play.

Clown School Day 17: The LeBron of Tic Tac Toe

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In which Our Hero learns that leadership means getting the simple things right.

THE SETUP

The game is simple: tic-tac-toe.

The complication: teammates.

Two teams of 11 players, across a ten-foot-by-ten-foot tic-tac-toe board. Each team has three handkerchiefs of their team color. At the sound of the drum, the first player sprints to a spot on the board, drops their handkerchief, and sprints back to tag the next player.

When all three of your handkerchiefs are placed, your move is to move one of your handkerchiefs instead of placing a new one.

At three in a row, you win the point.

THE ESCALATION

How is this so hard?

First, foot faults. Were both of your feet inside the square where you dropped the kerchief? If not, your placement doesn’t count. (More than one clown kicked the game board itself, forcing a complete game stop and reset.)

Second, speed. Your next teammate goes when your previous teammate tags them. If you dawdle, the opponents may get two moves to your team’s one: a death knell in tic tac toe.

Third, skill errors. Can you picture the board as it currently is, and how you would like it to be after your play? Can you balance both your team’s desire for three in a row with the importance of blocking the other team?

Fourth, panic. If you’re not sure where to place the handkerchief, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the twenty clowns yelling at you.

THE CHAOS

If this sounds intense, that’s because it is. It’s the most competitive I’ve seen clowns in four weeks of class. One clown classmate commented to me: “Usually you and I are the only two trying to win. In this game, everyone is.”

And the best part: it’s tic tac toe.

You know, the game that even a monkey can play.

When I played this same game in the summer course, I was dubbed “the LeBron of tic tac toe” by a Boston-accented TikTok star who’d gained school-wide notoriety for roasting himself in a Trump impression.

This time, my team came out to a strong start. 2-0 in the lead.

Their team called a time out.

From across the board, I could see one member of their team — a former death row attorney now turned stand up comedian — giving an impassioned speech.

Members of my team jeered at him. I thought of strategic elements I wanted to share — if unsure, play the middle or corners, not the sides; run back quickly to tag your teammate — but kept them to myself, unsure how to make them land. I didn’t want to come off as the pushy, out-for-victory teammate.

The game restarted. Their team came out on a tear. They won three of the next four points, and ultimately took the match 11-9.

All game I mused to myself: What had he said? They started to coordinate so well. What strategies did he share? How did he inspire them to listen to his suggestions without coming off as pushy?

THE REVELATION

At lunch, I asked him. I complimented him on his success, then I asked what he had said.

“Oh, that? Some of our team didn’t understand the game. I just explained the rules.”

There’s a Polish expression I enjoy that translates to “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.

Unfortunately, this is my circus.

And unfortunately, it is not populated with monkeys.

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 Weekend 3.2: This Place is Run by Clowns

JulianLeave a comment

In which Our Hero concludes that brilliance is no match for a red nose.

About once every other day, someone at clown school does something spectacularly disorganized. I sigh and say, “This place is run by clowns.”

And it is.

—

Clowns are not, by their nature, particularly intelligent.

It’s not that they’re stupid.

It’s that intelligence and clowning live on different axes.

An intelligent person may learn the craft faster. But the desire to clown, the joy of it, might even be anti-correlated with intelligence.

Smart people tend to want control. Clowns surrender it.

Smart people tend to want power. Clowns seek to be laughed at.

And yet, in my March course, three of the 30 Americans were Yale graduates.

Plus a single from Stanford.

Just enough prestige to make the chaos feel ironic.

Of course, it helps to be rich enough to spend a year falling on your face.

Still, it’s a funny sight I observed in Thursday’s class:

eight clowns silently arranging themselves in order of intelligence.

The clown they insisted should be at the bottom later thought this was hilarious as he has a master’s degree.

—

Clowning is a craft.

Most work is a craft.

Hell, even medicine is a craft.

And mastery in a craft depends less on general intelligence than on dedication —

and on cultivating the right skills: openness, affability, lightness.

—

This is the first social hierarchy I’ve been in where people organize by skill in a single, very specific craft.

In college, you could be successful at any number of things — academics, theater, sports, journalism.

In elementary school, the options were fewer but still broad: maybe good at math, worse at English, class clown, or owned the good video games.

Here, clowns arrange by everyday charisma.

And charisma in life is decently correlated with charisma on stage.

Add to that: we’re learning charisma.

And the social life becomes pretty interesting.

It’s like a schoolyard where the only question is: how fun are you at play?