The past 72 hours have some how rekindled a fire under my ass.
I had my first improv show Sunday night and I think it went rather well....for a first night. I crave, hunger, thirst, and long to become better at my craft. To raise the bar of quality and intelligence.
While talking with my friend Josh the other night I was verbally processing my dream for my life. I found myself spewing out ideas of traveling the world and researching comedy. Discovering how culture, society, economical class, geography, education, family heritage, surroundings, and other outside influences mold our sense of humor.
And if we are all human, what is the universal human comedy? I know it must be out there. What is funny verbally and what is funny physically? What crosses language barriers and brings us together through some cosmic juice of laughter?
Josh said it sounded like a great documentary idea. I think so too.
But what would I need to do before hand? Who to talk to? Who to get support from (there aint no way I'm traveling the world on my teller's salary!). There is so much I want to dig deeper into. What are the psychological effects? the mental and physical effects?
How can I prove that laughter does heal?
I went to a comedy club tonight and the acts were....not my style. I don't really care about being offended but I don't have much respect for people who go out of their way to offend or shock. One of the guys had good delivery, but his material was too cheap. By that I mean making jokes about retarded people, battered women, porn, and too many other jr high humor. Too easy if you ask me. Comedy is hard work. There's the timing, the sensitivity to your audience, the delivery, the vocabulary, the physicality. I know we all have different senses of humor. I'm learning that I can have admiration for a person's ability for comedy even if I hate their material. I can still learn. Either what to do or not to do.
With each day I find just how closely interwoven is my passion for comedy and helping people through laughter is to my purpose in life. It's as if someone has turned on a switch in me and I light up and talk, discuss, research, soak in for hours. I have so much to learn!
I've found myself around the people I was hoping to be around when I moved down here. But the reality of going from a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a freaking huge ocean makes me wonder if I'll ever get bigger.
My confidence has almost left me. I think I know what I'm talking about and then someone pipes in with even more knowledge or a correction. They have so much more talent, so much more knowledge. So much more seems to come naturally to them. And I'm jealous. But a good jealous. A determined jealous. "Fine!" I say "I'll go study more! Take more risks! I will grow and get better! So there!"
It isn't easy being this little fish. But I'm happy to be in the ocean.
