on trying to be funny

a secret

In Paris, I struggled at first.

I wanted to be funny. This didn’t go so well. When I wanted to be funny, I flopped. I was terrible. It didn’t work.

Philippe would tell me:

When you want too much to be funny. When you try too hard, all we see is your will. We never see you beautiful humanity, your joy in merely being alive.

That was the nice part. Then, he continued:

When you try so hard to do it right. To make a joke, you are boring. Fucking boring. So fucking boring, like maybe bureaucrat in Ottawa. So fucking boring I do not know why you are wasting our time here. You are so fucking boring that you kill Nuns and Priests with your shitty little joke. Women and men, so boring that they never fuck. You are more boring than them.

Philippe was a master.

The truth he told me? It hurt. And? It set me free. I stopped trying. I gave less of a shit. I played. Philippe noticed:

Ah-ha! This is not the bureaucrat. This is the anarchist. When you do not give a shit. When you have a great pleasure to b…