Disquieted: Send In The Clown

“Disquieted” is my new blog series. Here, I settle firmly into my role as an elder millennial and yell at clouds.

There are two things about me that I feel are direct contradictions. 1) I have a strong desire to do whatever I can to make the world a better place. 2) I’m a comedy writer. Now, when I say anything like this to folks, they are very kind and quick to dole out the compliments that I was half-fishing for. “Oh, everyone needs a laugh!” “Jokes make people happy.” “Laughter is the best medicine.” But when we live in a time where access to healthcare fully depends on which politician scored points today, it feels like medicine is the best medicine.

To make the subtext text, things are crazy, and I feel useless. Every day, I sense this huge chasm between what people all over the world need right now and what my skill set is. I spent my entire childhood (by the way, anytime I reference “my childhood” I mean from birth to 31), I spent my entire childhood honing my skills to be a comedian. That was because I didn’t know I’d be spending my (freshly minted) adulthood living in a country that cuts funding to Medicaid and Public Broadcasting. Even though all the signs were there that we need the money for more important things, like tax cuts to billionaires and Penske trucks.

Watching people get “deported” to a prison in a country they are not from, without even the charade of due process… and being a comedy writer feels like watching Mt. Vesuvius rain pumice on everyone… and being a comedy writer. It’s like people are panicking, shouting “WHAT DO WE DO?!” and I’m like “I don’t know, but have you ever noticed that you don’t appreciate how good-looking someone is until you watch them become a statue?” 

I should have focused on becoming an activist or a humanitarian. Instead, I’m just- a clown. If the Pagliacci joke was set now, the person would say to their therapist “I wish I could keep seeing you but the big beautiful bill cut funding to Medicaid and now I can’t afford to come here.” And the therapist would go “You’re in luck! The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight!” and the person would say “That’s the least helpful thing you could have possibly said right now.”

It’s frustrating and heartbreaking. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I LOVE America. I love the story of America. Is it a perfect story of wise and noble people who always made the right decision? Absolutely not. It’s the story of intelligent but deeply flawed men who dreamed up an ideal nation built on equality. It’s the story of that ideal inching closer and closer to reality as different people groups fight for their right to belong, to be treated with dignity. It’s the place where the son of immigrants and former slaves can look his parents in the eyes and go “Hey, I know you went through a lot in order for me to have any opportunity. I am going to use this foundation you’ve given me, this foundation built on sacrifice and struggle… to become a clown.”