One of my private beliefs that doesn’t translate very well is that true comedy is sacred. And not sacred as in solemn, but sacred as in profound. & even fart jokes can have a profundity to them if you get it right. But strangely few comedians seem to get it. Maybe I’m delusional?
I think it was Alan Watts who said that laughter and anxiety are both two sides of the same coin. The very serious job of the comedian, as I see it, is to transmute anxiety into laughter. Voltaire I think had a similar perspective.
(I visited my dad in hospital after he had a heart attack (he’s fine now) & he told us he couldn’t sleep bc one of the other guys kept farting all night. To be close to death & then be bombarded with farts… we belly-laughed for 10m and it’s probably my happiest memory of him)
I think for comedy to truly serve its exalted purpose, comedians have to, however briefly, put aside their ego, their neediness, their contempt and tap into a deep love for humanity, a deep joy, a deep sense of hilarity at the absurdity of all things. Easy for me to say, of course.
There’s a lot to be angry about in the world. There’s a lot of cruelty and injustice, &comedy can be a tool for addressing that. But I do privately believe that even there, there is a love in that pursuit. A desire for connection, shared understanding. Comedy is a way of grieving.
One must imagine Sisyphus LOL-ing.
You were born crying, you should die laughing.
A lot of the tedium of everyday life builds up anxiety & stress, from the burden of maintaining a costly illusion of sanity. The comedian’s job is to remind us that it’s all hilarious. And not in a contemptuous or cruel way – laughing at ourselves should be wholesome, nourishing.
So anyway, y’know. I get pretty bummed out when I see comedians get all tangled up in stupid non-discussions about people being offended and whatnot. It’s like finding out that they’re not really comedians, only pretending to be, only playing the part of it. I was rooting for you!
But I can’t be too mad about it because that would be me missing the plot too, you see what I mean?
It’s a little lonely inhabiting this space because very people really get it all the way through. But the joke there is, “That’s my secret, Captain – I’m always lonely.” 😂
You can’t prescribe this as a method to anybody else, because it can be reductive and dismissive if it’s done without love. But for me privately, “what’s the joke here” gets me through almost everything. Laughter is not just medicine, it is a radical act in an anxious universe.
It’s been a while since I read Taleb but one of my favourite bits from him is when he mentioned fantasizing about putting a mouse(?) down the shirts of stiff corporate suit types. In a way that’s a great way to describe all of this. Put the mouse of joy down your own suit.
I just remembered that one of my favourite comics of all time uses a rodent as a cheeky way of breaking through solemnity. There is something profound here. Lots of people imprison their rat and in so doing imprison themselves.