I was watching the Jim Carrey/Andy Kaufman documentary on Netflix. Carrey was discussing – (I was about to say “Jim was discussing”) but it doesn’t seem right for me to use his first name. For me to feel comfortable saying his first name, we would either have to form an unbreakable bond of friendship, or I would have to be worth as much as he is. At any rate, Mr. Carrey was discussing how, when he was doing stand-up, he kept asking “what do they want?” “What do they want.” And one night, he bolted upright and he realized that they (the audience) want to be free from concern. And so, in order for the audience to be free from concern, he – Mr. Carrey – himself had to be free from concern.
That feels to me like the answer for Jim Carrey. But what is my answer? When I ask “what do they want, what is the reply?
I asked that question as I was walking home this morning, and I was hoping for a lightning bolt to strike me. Instead, an answer came to me very simply. Popped right into my head as if it never left. What do they want from ME? The truth.
I am full of rage. Inevitably, I grow to dislike everybody I know. I pretend to be considerate and thoughtful, but I’m just stuffing my feelings. I give everybody around me status, and I tell myself I’m being accommodating. I even pride myself on being even tempered, in spite of the fact that, in many cases, I am not.
Every waking moment that I am around other people, I am lying. My mother was right when she called me out on lying. My entire existence is a lie. It has to be, because whenever I am honest, I say what people don’t want to hear.
So that’s why they want the truth. Because nobody can be honest, either.
Maybe I don’t want to fix myself. Maybe I like myself broken.
But on the other hand – should I not aspire to be better than what I am? And is truth something that is, at the end of the day, poorly interpreted by even the greatest of minds?
What do the people want? The ugly truth. The truth they know they shouldn’t feel, but do. The knowledge that they are not the only ones who are failing. The knowledge that they are not the only ones who are struggling.
What do the people want? My struggle.
I was about to argue this point. But to argue this point would only be to run away from what I try to avoid onstage.
What do the people want? The Truth.
“But if the truth was funny, then people would get laughs reading the Newspaper” – according to Mr. Seinfeld.
He has a different answer to the question of What do the People Want. He is not me.
What do the people want? The Truth.