After spending the past few weeks talking about my life and the direction I want to go in long-term, and after a number of intense, heartfelt conversations with my wife about our goals as a family, I made a decision to change careers and become a clown.
Anyone who’s known me for a while knows of my consistent efforts to try to make people laugh (some of you have even been unfortunate enough to witness my old days as a stand-up comedian during and shortly after college.) I feel like this is an opportunity to channel that energy trying to make people happy in a direction that I can actually be paid for. It’ll also represent a new challenge, as slapstick has not historically been a strong suit of mine (although it can’t be any less funny than my usual material.)
It obviously will be a huge change for me, not just in terms of my income and the type of work I’ll be doing, but in a philosophical way as well. As one can imagine, there isn’t exactly a career path for clowns - a few make it to traveling circuses (circi?) and the like, but the majority of them stay in their communities locally and perform gigs on a contract basis.
The biggest challenge through all this has been me overcoming my natural drive to want to achieve and move up - it will hopefully teach me some necessary humility and teach me to approach my work more like a craftsman or artisan, less like a businessperson. Although who knows - maybe I’ll eventually leverage my contacts in the industry and create a clown-finder directory site. Not a bad idea…
Thankfully I have the support of my loving wife on this - I was shocked but she was actually really enthusiastic about it. I think she’s secretly excited about being able to use the extra makeup, but she seems really sincere.
So yeah, I’m super nervous, excited, and scared all at once. I’ll continue of course to post my progress through clown school here as I complete the curriculum. I imagine it’ll be pretty interesting…
3 responses
Bravo, my friend. You were made for this. :)
Believe it or not, clowns don’t work in a bubble. I’m pretty sure there is actually a clown association and an annual clown convention. They certainly exist for yo-yoers and balloon animal artists (they are artists, right?). Maybe you can make some new friends!
You are ready have red hair so you will make a perfect clown :)