Sad clown paradox

> I see myself in it, but it could be in a horoscope / med student way.

Thank you for saying this. Anecdotally, I jump to self identifying as someone who uses humor to deal with trauma, but it’s good to be reminded that everyone has some level of trauma in their lives.

You need to modulo that with the influence of alcohol.

I did a clowning masterclass in France a few months ago. (That was a whole, wild experience that I’ll be haunted by for years). While I was there I realised I’ve been operating under a certain kind of dumb philosophy my whole life without realising it. The philosophy is something like this: “I believe if I’m “good” enough, nobody will reject me for being “bad” and people will like me.” And fill in whatever you want for good - be clever, say the right things, get a good mark on the test, remember everyone’s name, be competent, and so on.

When I was at clown school, I realised that philosophy is totally wrong. We don’t like people who are perfect. We like people for their flaws. At the heart of clowning is something called “the flop”. That is, when something doesn’t work and it’s seen to not work, instead of going down into shame, working with the flop is looking at the audience and acknowledging it. Everyone’s acknowledgement is different - but in that moment of failure we’re all deeply connected. And the clown being ok with it is catharsis for everyone.

I think the clowning philosophy is something like: “When I make mistakes, people connect with me the most. But it has to be real. I have to enter with a dream, and when it falls apart they love me when they see my eyes”. Or something like that. I think I can’t quite articulate it yet.

Anyway, of course there’s a set of clear psychological traits associated with comedians. It’s not because comedians are uniquely messed in the head. It’s because connecting to others through failure is different from connecting to others through success. They can both be used as coping strategies. And both can be used to bring out the best in us.

It was quite the slap in the face for me to realise my perfectionism meant I was doing everything all wrong on stage. I cried a lot. But there’s also something beautiful in it. In having new ways to show up. I like it.

I've reflected long and hard on the same pattern of thinking in myself. Despite lots of downsides, it's been a hard thing to part with.

I think rooting my self-worth in competence is the only reason I've been able to achieve anything remotely worthwhile through a learning disability which affects focus and concentration. It's a great way to summon determination.

The downside of this way of thinking is that it ties one's internal qualities (which can always been controlled) through uncertain exterior outcomes (competence being measured by the capacity to affect a desired change within the scope of possibility). The consequence is an excessive degree of uncertainty in one's own skills, and assessments that are doomed to be imprecise because luck now uniquely has the ability to affect the outcome of a self-assessment of character.

I think what you're describing is that clowning moves the assessment to a more consistent measure (intent, divorced from outcome). Shifting from a consequentialist to a non-consequentialist perspective on the self is indeed a tremendous change. From the perspective of wellbeing, a non-consequentialist worldview is probably easier to reckon with over the long term because the outcome is more controllable.

Good on you. I'll have to put clowning on the bucket list.