Oct 25 - Have you seen my sherpa?

It was Clown class again last night, but this time I don't have any great stories of personal failure to share. Why? Because I succeeded wildly? No, that can't be it. It was because I sat on the sidelines watching because I have 14 stitches in my lower abdomen, which makes me not want to spend my evening flailing about like a crazy person. (Mole removal, nothing serious.)

So I watched class. It was hard, because I actually wanted to participate. Actually wanted to participate, you say? Why wouldn't you want to participate? Ummm....because it's hard and I don't want to fail.

A guy in class and I have been discussing this the last few times. We are filled with a sense of dread about coming to class. Not enough to make us not go to class, but a sense of impending doom nonetheless. Like going to the dentist or the doctor. You know there is going to be unpleasantness, but you know it's good for you, so you go.

Why do we have dread? Because we know we are going to fail. It's set up that way, because in the moments of failure is where we are going to find the clown. Unfortunately for us, we have programmed deeply into our brains by our culture that failure is really, really bad, and you don't want to do it, because then you are a ... failure. (gasp!)

Of course the clown doesn't think of failure. The clown thinks of success. Clowns think they are going to succeed at whatever is they're up to. It is the performer who thinks of failure, and feels like shit. Right now, none of us are too good at separating the ourselves from the clown. So it is our ego that gets dragged down, and our soul that gets crushed.

Not that there are not moments of victory and success. And there are moments when we are genuinely making people laugh and that's good too. But unfortunately, as is also prevalent in our society, we have been focusing on the negative. And quite frankly there has been more down than up in this class so far. But I think that is good. Beat down that ego. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger, etc.

Maybe it is like climbing Mount Everest. It's hard and harder. You can't breathe, your toes turn black and fall off, oh yeah, and you can die, but if you succeed then you have accomplished a great thing.

Well I am at Base Camp Two on Mount Clown. I can't see the top due to fog, but I am guessing it is there. Hopefully it will be sunny at the top.