Send in the Clowns

I started a clowning class two months ago, and because this is such an eminently bloggable topic, I kept putting off writing about it. Today, was the last class. My feelings about clowning have waxed and waned, ever since a friend asked if I wanted to accompany her to the class. My initial reaction was a strong No, but on further reflection I decided to take the plunge. My reasons were to learn to get out of my head, become less self-conscious and to become more comfortable with silliness. I remember family stories about my infectious laughter when I was a child, and I was curious to see if that part still lived inside of me. My initial enthusiasm was stoked by the novelty of it, and how people’s eyes would light up with curiosity and admiration when I told them I was doing a clowning class. It’s a cool thing to do, and trust me to come up with the language to make it sound cooler when explaining it to someone else. A friend also recommended a book about laughter which had a section on clowning, and I lapped it all up. But, as the last class progressed I began to find it increasingly tedious. I didn’t like my clown and didn’t particularly enjoy clowning. Until today. Our class was interrupted by a group of elder clowns in costume, who were more advanced students of the instructor. And, boy were they good. They all had very different characters, and such great characters they were. They performed for us as a group, and then we performed for them individually, and then we paired up with them and performed as a duo. This is not going to be my last post about clowning, but for now I am going to end this post by saying that their delightful interlude has inspired me to carry on clowning.

Asking Difficult Questions

I got back from Providence this afternoon, and it was a good trip even though I didn't feel good all or even most of the time. Academic events can be tricky to navigate and I wish I could approach them with a more positive attitude. I often find myself biting my lip and not giving an honest answer when someone asks me how I found a particular session. "It was good, but ......". At the same time, I realise that if someone was similarly critical of my work, I would be hurt too. What is it about academia that turns all of us into such fragile flowers? I asked some tough questions during audience questions and someone even complimented me later about the quality of the questions. But, I thought long and hard before asking them. Should I just ask softball questions and ask more probing questions in private? Would I be harming my career by asking difficult questions? Was I just trying to show off by asking difficult questions? Should I go back to being a journalist if I enjoy asking difficult questions? But, I decided that since this was a summer school, and as all the instructors were in secure employment and not shrinking daisies aka PhD students, they should be able to take difficult questions. Yes, you need to be strategic in any industry but you also has to ask if contorting yourself so much that you stop recognizing yourself is worth it? These might seem like a trivial question, but I have been thinking long and hard about whether I want to be in academia, and I suppose any career which doesn't allow you to be yourself (within limits) is possibly not the right career for you. 

Hypernormalization

 There is a word for what many people, including me, are doubtlessly feeling--that the world is crumbling before our eyes, but most people seem to be coping quite well. It’s called hypernormalization, which refers to people going about their daily lives in the midst of enormous social upheaval because of their perceived lack of power to respond to the upheaval and their inability to imagine a different world. I have written before about the struggle to find one’s place and purpose in a tumultuous world. The inability to answer the question: what does it mean to have a successful and purposeful life today? And, that post was written before Oct. 7, which has permanently changed many of us in ways that we don’t fully fathom yet. I don’t have any solutions, but I do know that pretending everything is normal is not worse than being paralyzed by despair. Or at least paralyzed for long, and seeing despair as an ethical response to the upheaval. In the past few days, I have been watching a video that perfectly captures both the pain and injustice of today’s world and the hope we need. It starts with a white American woman and an adorable curly-haired brown little girl. The video starts with both of them pretending to be sleeping bunnies. They then wake up around and start dancing, which is when we see both the girl’s legs are prosthetics--she is a double amputee from Gaza, but you would never know it just by looking at her cheerful angelic face. If a child double amputee whose father and siblings are still trapped in Gaza can laugh and small, the case for despair feels much weaker.

Words Once Said

 I had an interaction recently where I responded to some mildly inconsiderate behavior with a calculatedly cruel message. Before responding, I knew I should have probably slept on it, and I knew I would regret if I didn't, but I sent it anyway. The person immediately responded with contrition as my message accused them of being callous, but then blocked me after a few hours. I didn't realize what I had done until at least two days later and I was shocked by how I calculating I was in crafting the message to cause maximum damage even though I was in a state of agitation. Of course, it was too late to say sorry since I had no way to contact the person. Words once said can sometimes not been taken back and words can burn bridges. I briefly considered looking the person up online and contacting them to say sorry, but a friend rightly pointed out that 1) it would seem stalkerish since it was someone I had met on a dating app 2) they were probably over it since we had not known each other for long at all and 3) the only purpose of the apology would be to assuage my guilt. And, sometimes you just have suck it up and live with the guilt rather than the burden the aggrieved person with your need for redemption. But, it was a useful reminder that nice people can always behave in horrible ways. I have written before about how some people, usually men, from South Asia find it difficult to say sorry. But, it is also the case that some people behave recklessly because they can say sorry easily if they mess up. Not saying sorry or saying so sorry too easily are both problematic. 

Love on the Spectrum

 I have been watching a dating show recommended by a friend called Love On the Spectrum, and there is so to learn from it. In the first season, the conversations between the paticipants, all of whom are on the autism spectrum felt very stilted. I doubted any of them would end up together. But, most of the did, which got be thinking about a book that I am reading which talks about unconscious communication. One of the quotes I love is “we leak truths from our bodies all the time”. People like me place a lot of emphasis on good conversation. But, then we are often left wondering why we don’t feel drawn to some people we have good conversations with. People make you feel a certain way in their presence through their words but also their bodies. Often, we try to pin down the reason for the discomfort or bad vibes that we feel in our bodies from the presence of some people. Rationalizing a feeling is a fool’s errand, but it is difficult not to do.

And, its difficult not to love the participants of the show, even the men. The men are free of artifice and masculine conditioning and speak of their loneliness and insecurities in heartbreakingly frank ways.

Indo-Pak Conflict

To describe the Indo-Pak conflict as being clouded by a "fog of war" would be a gross understatement. It feels like two entirely differnt conflcits are unfloding on the screens of Indian and Pakistani TV viewers. There is false reporting and there is fantasy reporting. Indian media covered itself in infamy by reportng the capture of a Pakistani fighter pilot, the destruction of Karachi port and the capture of a majot Paksitani city. All products of journalists' imagination so unhinged that woudl make even Israel's media blush.The thing is when you can trust news, an event becomes less real. Your mind imagines the reality to be ten tmies better or worse than its media depiction depending on your mood. In the university where I did my master's, there was a group of professors who were hard constructionists. Soft constructionists believe that reality is not independent of the language used to desribe it. The language co-constructs reality. Hard constructivists believe there is no objective external reality independent of the language used to describe it. This group was often the butt of our jokes. Now i think the joke's on us. 

Reading, Thinking and Writing

Close friends are those you can think aloud with. But, I don't have the energy to mediate on the nature of close friendships at the moment, so I am going to leave it at that. Yesterday, I was thinking aloud with a close friend, who is familiar with my writer’s block and super-extended struggles with motivation. I now have experience of academia in the US and UK. Far more knowledgeable people than me have written about how they are shitshows which are getting shittier year. There is nothing more I can add to that discussion, aside from corroboration with my personal experience. However, there are few professions that pay you to read, think and write. However, corrupted and contorted the original mission of academia is, it is still does offer opportunities to do that. Or at least, I can say my current circumstances give me that opportunity in ample measure. I have eloquently described my writer’s block to all those willing to listen, and frankly, those descriptions have started to feel forced and staid. It is time to try to write my way out of my writer’s block.