I’m feeling absolutely no motivation to do anything today. Except write this blog. I find myself asking what I want to actually do with my life. Let me rephrase – I know what I want to do with my life, but my fear is that I won’t get to do it. Or that I will only be mediocre at it.
I strive to be the best that I can be. I really do strive for that. And I keep going around in circles saying to myself “well, if were truly great, wouldn’t I be discovered by now? Wouldn’t my greatness be self-evident?”
But this leads me to become more obsessed with being great than with having fun, or with saying what I want to say – and then I get stuck in everything – the writing, the performing, everything. And always there’s the question of whether or not I’m good enough – the greatest fear I have is to tell myself “yes, I am good enough.”
That is my biggest fear. Perhaps that is the cornerstone of all of this depression. The fear of believing in myself.
Saying that I’m great – first of all, that’s horrible for comedy. People don’t want to hear about how wonderful I am. They want to hear about how miserable I am. If this were Josh and Happiness Vs. The World – Facebook would have banned me by now.
So, my instinct as an artist is to say “you are an original, wonderful, and talented individual who has been touched by God.”
But the comedian in me says “at best, you’re the economy version of Richard Lewis. And you can’t digest milk products. And there is no God, so you should call the police on who or whatever “touched” you.”
So where is the truth? Somewhere in between. Or perhaps it doesn’t matter.
I read the following in a book about meditation: there are three basic steps to medication – precision, gentleness, and letting go.
Precision – the discipline of practice.
Gentleness – not letting precision run away with you.
Letting go – happens eventually, by itself, as you find the balance between precision and gentleness.
I’d say the same is true for stand-up. I need to find a better balance between precision and gentleness. The morning is a great time for precision – that’s when I write. Gentleness is useful after bad performances, and letting go will happen when it happens. Yes, it all sounds angelic on paper – it’s quite another thing when I say what I think is a punchline, and it turns out to be just another sentence.
Or is it that I’m not even sure what I want anymore? The things that gave me joy are no longer doing so.
Or am I just tired?
So continues the endless questioning. And then the thought that I am letting everyone down.
That’s it – I’m getting a Rice Krispy treat.