11 ms·
Sad clown paradox
- dgfitz 3y agoBoy does this ring true. I’ll hafta talk to my therapist about it, wonder how widely known it is.
- passion__desire 3y agoI think this is similar to mistaken belief like there is link between "bipolar disorder and artistic ability".Kay Redfield Jamison proposes such a thesis. There is substantial number of artists who don't have bipolar as well large number of bipolar people who don't have artistic ability
- Dylan16807 3y agoI'm not saying there's a link, but that's very far from disproving a link.
- passion__desire 3y agoHow is one being a clown related to sadness if the distribution of sad people is same irrespective of profession?
- Dylan16807 3y ago"the distribution is the same" is a clear disproof of a link. "substantial number who don't" and "large number of people who don't" is not disproof of a link. A substantial number of people with cancer never smoked, and a large number of smokers don't get cancer. That sentence is completely true despite the strong link between the two. Also I was specifically talking about the artists and bipolar claim, not clowns. But where is that info about the distribution of sad people? I don't see it in the article. Or was it a hypothetical?
- finefrenchbrit 3y ago[flagged]
- 2devnull 3y agoOn average everyone is the same. In reality everyone is very different. Science deals with averages. Believing in averages rather than one’s experience goes oft awry.
- passion__desire 3y agoIf the link were to be true I would believe the more bipolar you are, the more creative you should be. But we know it becomes debilitating.
- shusaku 3y agoThat “Rorschach test” section is weird, someone basically decided to summarize some random book.
- clouddrover 3y agoMaybe that's just what you see in it. I see a pretty butterfly.
- sdwr 3y agoI see it as reaching for a point it doesn't quite get to. It's pointing out that comedians are focused on opposites (up / down, good / bad, big / little), and they play with the contrast between extremes. It echoes the section about internal / external contrast (happy facade, sad inside).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Crunchified 3y ago...or perhaps, Robin Williams syndrome?
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoCharlie Chaplin may have been there first. (Never diagnosed, but they didn't much diagnose depression back then.) https://www.grunge.com/128829/charlie-chaplins-tragic-real-life-story/ https://www.grunge.com/128829/charlie-chaplins-tragic-real-l...
- mahrain 3y agoHaving just read the Matthew Perry memoir, this one fits perfectly too.
- zen928 3y agoIt seems that misinformation when the crowd of low-life online celebrities who took the chance to relentlessly virtue signal "awareness of mental illness" around Robin William's death will never truly leave us. He was depressed from being diagnosed with Parkinsons (ultimately diagnosed as Lewy body dementia) and feeling like he was already losing control of his mind while suffering severely with related complications for over the final year of his life, slowly escalating from signs he was actively seeking healthcare professionals to understand before he got a diagnosis. Do you see a possible connection between feeling a loss of control with thoughts in your mind with a Parkinsons diagnosis and being depressed, or that he was depressed his entire life while holding an emotional front and the fatal diagnosis was just unrelated and no one could have seen it coming and that we need to be aware of the signs? It's so disrespectful to every party involved to chalk up what happened as something that couldn't have been noticed or prevented.
- matheusmoreira 3y agoDoesn't seem paradoxical to me at all. If you learn enough about the world, quite a lot of it turns into a big joke. It's a surreal feeling. Like nothing you do matters because it's all just an absurd joke.
- unsubstantiated 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoThere's a related phenomenon I've seen a lot, sometimes firsthand, of people who consider themselves shy while others consider them the life of the party.
- atoav 3y agoBeing shy doesn't mean you are silent. It means you have to use energy and courage to break that silence. So while most people would say someone who doesn't dare to talk is shy, it is totally possible to still be shy and be the life of the party. As an introvert who has zero stage fright and good talking skills: I am still an introvert. Being around people costs me energy, while for extroverts not being around people costs them energy. I would not be perceived as an introvert by most.
- albert_e 3y agoMy thoughts too more or less. I have a lot of resistance to go and meet people, break ice, try and engage in conversations even with people I know very well or supposed to work with on a regular basis. I feel drained afterwards and need a break after every meeting. The meeting itself usually goes well, and I am fairly engaged even if not the most talkative -- if the subject matter of discussion is my work or something I am reasonably interested in I might be the most vocal even -- and people who meet me (without knowing me and my preferences closely) might very well picture me as a "normal" or even an extroverted person. But (I just came up with this thougt experiment:) if someone were to interrupt my social or professional meetings at any random point and give me a choice of either continuing or immediately going back to "me time" without any consequences -- I think I would choose the latter 90% or more of the time.
- underwater 3y agoYou're describing the popular usage of "introvert", but to me the definition of "shy" has always been about the demonstrated bahaviour and not the internal feelings.
- somat 3y agoI always figured it was just human nature, I think it is something like. Interacting with unknown people is slightly stressful, you feel this stress yourself but it is hard/impossible to see in others(unless they actually are really bad with interaction). so when self diagnosed most people will say they are introverts, or on the introvert side of the graph(they feel this way based on what they see). but when graded externally would be average or extroverted.
- cainxinth 3y ago"But doctor, I am Pagliacci"
- hotnfresh 3y agoThat joke’s got a whole section in the article.
- quickthrower2 3y agoI love the joke. It feels really “old world” for some reason like simplicity before the modern world took over. A simple joke.
- feintruled 3y agoYeah they really fluff the delivery of it though, basically give you the punchline first and then at the end reproduce a purposely bad retelling of it in full.
- earthboundkid 3y agoIt wouldn't be Wikipedia if they didn't stomp all over the joke.
- anononaut 3y agoIt's comical in its own right
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- smitty1e 3y agoAs I was saying, jokes are unit tests of understanding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38058350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38058350 That "understanding" could well be coping with pain.
- sdwr 3y agoThis whole thing is pretty damn well-argued, paints a compelling picture. I see myself in it, but it could be in a horoscope / med student way. Humour is definitely a way to de-fang the world, and smooth over difficult situations. The "making other people" laugh bit is interesting, considering the smile / bared teeth dichotomy.
- redconfetti 3y agoDisarm you with a smile...
- mathgeek 3y ago> 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.
- JohnFen 3y agoAlso, "nobody understands anything that isn't funny."
- sneed_chucker 3y agoNick Mullen comes to mind
- atleastoptimal 3y ago[insert Nick Mullen quote]. Not many of them I can easily repeat on Orange site
- t-writescode 3y agoAre you being racist? Is this an in-joke I don't get? What's up here?
- atleastoptimal 3y agoIt's a Nick Mullen in-joke, perhaps a bit racist even in context but it was the only quote from him I could remember
- t-writescode 3y agoHey, thanks for changing the joke!
- a_e_k 3y agoMy favorite example is Jack Point from Yeomen of the Guard [0]: Point: Oh, thoughtless crew! Ye know not what ye do! Attend to me, and shed a tear or two — For I have a song to sing, O! All: Sing me your song, O! Point: It is sung to the moon By a love-lorn loon, Who fled from the mocking throng, O! It's a song of a merryman, moping mum, Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum, Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb, As he sighed for the love of a ladye. [0] https://youtu.be/1WDlri5ACNg?t=1801 https://youtu.be/1WDlri5ACNg?t=1801
- chrismorgan 3y agoBetter shown, I think, by Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon and the preceding dialogue, back near the start of Act II. https://gsarchive.net/yeomen/web_opera/yeomen_13d.html https://gsarchive.net/yeomen/web_opera/yeomen_13d.html for the dialogue and https://gsarchive.net/yeomen/web_opera/yeomen_14.html https://gsarchive.net/yeomen/web_opera/yeomen_14.html for the song. (PDF of the entire libretti, which I find much more convenient: https://gsarchive.net/yeomen/yg_lib.pdf#page=28&zoom=auto,-131,124 https://gsarchive.net/yeomen/yg_lib.pdf#page=28&zoom=auto,-1....) The dialogue is useful context for the song in which the jester explains to a would-be jester the troubles of being paid to be funny. Gilbert enjoyed a spot of paradox, some more patent than others. In The Pirates of Penzance a leap year forms a paradox (, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox) as the protagonist has lived for twenty-one years, yet reckoning by his natal day he is a little boy of five. As for Patience, it is subtitled “or, Bunthorne’s Bride”, yet ends with everyone except Bunthorne scheduled to be married.
- a_e_k 3y agoYes, Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon is also an excellent choice, too, and one that I'd debated referencing instead. But ultimately the "Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum," line in I have a song to sing O! and its reprise in the finale was what led me to pick that song to quote here. (Plus that song and the music is probably my favorite among the G&S canon. :-)
- aatd86 3y agoLol, now you can't even be funny in peace... If you're too funny, you might be diagnosed as depressed... smh. Tough crowd. :p
- djmips 3y agoYeah, sad is a loaded word too.
- lazide 3y agoProfessional comedians are…. Well known to have issues. It’s not a type of direction someone takes if they’re able to get what they need from a normal life. Just being funny != being a professional comedian.
- djur 3y agoI wonder how comedians compare to other performers, though. There are plenty of stories of musicians with problems, for instance.
- lazide 3y agoI suspect it's a similar dynamic at play.
- aatd86 3y agoWhat about someone who starts acting classes as a kid and naturally turns toward comedy? Then again I understand that being compelled to trigger something in someone all the time (laughter) can be pretty demanding. That's also an internal work of the mind and how to deal with one's thoughts and emotions, it doesn't have to be so stressful.
- lazide 3y agoIt's not just demanding, it's pretty anxiety inducing as the comedian has no direct control over if the audience will find it funny or not! It's basically the opposite of Stoicism, for instance. Their happiness/success depends on being able to make other people happy/laugh, which... yikes. Do you have any examples of anyone who has done so long term? Looking at the list of professional comedians, I'm not seeing any obvious examples.
- QuinnyPig 3y agoWell balls.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoAlmost all comedians are fucked up emotionally, it's kind of a truism. Only the most desperate for approval go through as much work, practice and humiliation it takes to occasionally get laughs
- reidjs 3y agoI do it for the challenge and community mostly. Comics are pretty funny and very inclusive. Delivering jokes to strangers takes a lot of courage, and as you said, to actually get laughs takes a lot of work, practice, and humiliation
- js8 3y agoSo, reading the comments.. there seem to be an internal and an external explanations to the paradox. Internal explanations are that people who want to do comedy tend to be somehow messed up somehow. External explanations are that the world itself is messed up, and if you want to do comedy, you have to understand it, and that makes you sad. I think to determine which one is true, we should look at people curious about the world who don't do comedy, for example, scientists or activists. Are these often sad too?
- lazide 3y agoComedians typically were in sad environments and coped by making people (and themselves) laugh. But laughter is transitory. And jokes grow stale. So it’s chasing a high. A type of hedonic treadmill.
- Joeboy 3y ago> Comedians typically were in sad environments and coped by making people (and themselves) laugh. According to Richard Belzer's wikipedia page, he "declared that his comedy career began when trying to make her laugh to distract her from abusing him and his brother". Which is may be an extreme case, but illustrative of what drives some people to comedy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- amelius 3y ago> Sad clown paradox is characterised by a cyclothymic temperament. How do I parse this sentence?
- Loughla 3y agoEmotional highs and lows. You feel REAL good when you feel good and REAL bad when you feel bad. The world is either amazing and full of wonder, or a hopeless mess.
- moffkalast 3y agoSounds like every programmer I know, including myself. Either you feel like the dumbest idiot alive or literally the omnipotent god himself, and nothing in between.
- Joeboy 3y agonoun phrase (subject) Sad clown paradox | verb phrase is characterised by | noun phrase (object) a cyclothymic temperament ?
- josephg 3y agoI 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.
- stuartjohnson12 3y agoI'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.
- idk1 3y agoStewart Lee: Please help doctor, I’m really depressed, is there anything you can do? Doctor: The greatest comedian in the world is in town, Stewart Lee, you should go see him. Stewart Lee: But I am Stewart Lee! Doctor: O right, sorry I didn’t recognise you, you’ve got really fat.
- motohagiography 3y agoThe symbol of happy/sad drama masks (Thalia and Melpomene) is an ancient reference to this same dynamic. Was prompted to look up the definition of the word "pathetic," recently, and it means evocativeness of emotion, but typically sympathy or pity instead of laughter. Being comical and pathetic seem like the same thing, we just don't understand the word well because it's an epithet in pop culture that nobody considers the meaning of. When you look at a lot of art or music as pathetic in that they are aimed to stir a kind of nostalgia or sorrow, it's the same underlying art that produces laughter and joy. It's like a spectrum of Handel to Chopin, where one evokes soaring joy and the other a sense of nostalgia and memory. I'm very funny, but I also make very pathetic art as expressions of the same underlying capacity for pathos. In the essential meaning of the word comedy is a pathetic artform that refines out the neutralizing emotions and produces pure involuntary laughter. Whereas the well of personal experience the performer uses is going to have all the "sadness" (in the form of wistfulness, nostalgia, romance, etc.) as well. Someone who is funny or brilliant or entertaining operates using pathetic (evocative) means. This "sadness" of clowns is only a problem when we judge or criticize it. Really, if you can just see your comedic sadness as a natural capacity for pathos, (and take the Zen view of not being your feelings) it's another source of creative energy.
- noman-land 3y agoThis immediately brought the Dolly Parton song Jolene into my head. First time I heard it I was struck with how pathetic it was. It was very jarring hearing a superstar like Dolly singing from such a position of inferiority. But the song is incredible. You feel her feelings of inadequacy so deeply. It's a masterful example of this mechanic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixrje2rXLMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixrje2rXLMA
- motohagiography 3y agoBlues itself as a genre is similar. A lot of what became known as alternative music was defined by a related sense of pathos, where a lot of it was about indulging and wallowing. Pop music is like an opposite of comedy because comedy is about the unexpected, where pop is about simple satisfaction. When we say "pathetic," it's usually a shorthand for disgust, but a lot of beauty in the world is evocatively pathetic by virtue of its fragility or temporariness. In a more generalized sense, comedy and humour are a pathetic way of relating, and it's not a criticism so much as a way of emphasizing we should develop a better understanding of pathos, as forgiving or having compassion for it by recognizing it for what it is seems like it could relieve a lot of suffering.
- earthboundkid 3y agoEveryone should watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mera_Naam_Joker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mera_Naam_Joker. It's such a great movie.
- greggsy 3y agoIll take your word for it - it’s a four hour Hindi movie from 1970…
- earthboundkid 3y agoI started watching unsubtitled clips on YouTube, and I couldn't stop. Even without the language, it's mesmerizing.
- paulcole 3y agoPart of it is that happy clowns just aren't interesting to study or hear about.
- avgcorrection 3y agoI really dislike when something is “non-intuitive” to the completely naive and thus a phenomenom is called a paradox.
- dudeinjapan 3y agoI didn't expect that, but you're right. It must be a paradox.
- dudeinjapan 3y ago"To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad." -- Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey
- dudeinjapan 3y agoBy this logic, trolls who make others miserable must be the happiest people in the world.
- iamcasen 3y ago"A study conducted by Fisher found humour-orientated individuals likely to identify their mothers as demanding, unsympathetic and distant. They were seen as avoiding the nurturant role, commonly falling on the father to fulfil this role for the family.[21] " Wow I didn't expect to read a wikipedia page written explicitly about my life today. Except in my case, my father didn't nurture either. I never thought of my tendency towards humor as a tool for disarming family conflict, but it feels very accurate
- RecycledEle 3y agoWhat if we "mentally ill" are the ones that see reality correctly, and when we make common sense observations the normies find it funny?