Be In Love With The Process, Not The Result
Fantasy land is fun, but reality is where we live.
I spent a lot of time dreaming up different scenarios in my life. Occasionally I still think about them. But in my experienced, more practical age, I quickly shoot them down by thinking of the process to get there. I wouldn’t call it pragmatism, but more of a safety mechanism to not go to deep into the fantasy, and come out depressed when it’s not even remotely close to being real.
Since I was 16 years old, listening to Stand-up comedy on my way to school, I always dreamed of being on stage being laughed at by people who paid me to do so…instead of being laughed at for free in my day-to-day life. Every time I watched a comedy special, or an entertainer on a talk show, I envisioned myself doing it even better. I knew it probably wasn’t easy to do, but my fantasy land image made it so seemingly possible that it was almost guaranteed I’d succeed. I mean, I would spit out the punch line before the comedian did. I had great comedy vision, if that’s a thing? I dunno I’m not a jokeologist.
People encouraged me to do it, people who had no idea I even enjoyed stand-up comedy. People laughed at whatever sounds were apparently funny that came out of my mouth hole. This went on throughout college and into my second and third careers. For a New Year’s Resolution, a month straight, I used to wake up at 5AM, went to Starbucks and wrote what I thought were funny jokes I’d say into a microphone at strangers one day. Then I’d head to work at 7AM.
No matter what I had learned in the “real-world” I still had this idea that I’d be doing stand-up some day and it’d be as amazing as I’d been selling myself. Probably have a 30 minute Comedy Central special in a year or so. Definitely self-publish an album of my college tour.
For 13 years straight I had this fantasy in my head. I did my first 5 minute set at age 29.
I didn’t bomb. I got laughs. It was a total fucking let down.
I got off stage, sat down, and digested what just transpired as the next comedian went up. I had worked on that material for the better part of a year, tweaking it, enunciating words differently, moving pieces around.
The worst part that was never part of my fantasy equation: having to go to open mics 7 days a week, only getting 5 minutes of actual practice. No professional sports athlete becomes a pro with 5 minutes of practice a day. This was the most inefficient industry I’ve ever been exposed to.
I have a 78 page word doc and who knows how many pages on Evernote of jokes, ideas for jokes, and random babbling that if it were released to the wild might get me put into a straight jacket.
Just to crunch some numbers, around ~4 paragraphs = a 5 minute set. I can get ~7 paragraphs on a word doc, that’s around 546 paragraphs in just my Word doc. I have about 136, 5-minute sets I’d get to craft. Not including my daily jotted down ideas, or even touching Evernote…or my Twitter feed.
Numbers and math never entered my mind when I lost myself listening to Chris Rock, George Carlin, Louis CK, and many, many others. You know what else never entered the equation?
Having to give up most of my social life, and eventually my professional life if I were to pursue this full time. Goodbye paychecks, health care, friends who want to hang out at night.
The process is complete dog shit, from my perspective. Inefficient, inconvenient, and I haven’t even touched on the emotional aspect of the future bombings that would take place.
Do I still believe I could be a successful comedian, filling up theater’s, basking in the laughs that would follow me everywhere?
Stephen Hawking believes in the multiverse, and because he is just a touch smarter than me, I’m going to say yes. But in a parallel universe where my values aligned with the process of becoming a successful stand up comedian.
Now if everyone could please shut up, Dave Chappelle’s new stand-up special is about to start on Netflix. I have a special place in my fantastical brain I need to go to.
