This is a part of the ongoing series, “Becoming Better Levelling” (BBL for short).
In a series of self-help posts, I will be my own therapist and overshare. I think a very important part of BBL is to confront my problems head-to-head, like facing myself in the mirror and popping those terrible, oily, and snowy pimples out metaphorically. It is painful and you bleed a lot, but the longer you ignore it the deeper it festers. These are manifestos of how I aspire to become better in an abstract, introspective way.
A new goal of mine is to stop being funny.
Or, to be more precise, stop doing things for the sake of being funny, i.e. doing things “as a joke”.
According to “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson, people typically have good and bad values to navigate their actions. Good values include honesty, kindness, and courage, while bad values can range from popularity and materialism, to the abstract idea of wealth and success. Manson defines good values as “reality-based, socially constructive, immediate and controllable”, while bad values are “superstitious, socially destructive, and not immediate or controllable”. Bad values may bring you temporary happiness, but they ultimately do not add any meaning to your sad, miserable life.
Now comes the question: is “being funny” a good or bad value? Should I stop my pursuit of “being funny” to ascend to a higher level of NGAF?
It comes down to “why” questions. Why do I like being funny? Because it gives me charisma. Why do I want charisma? Because it makes me feel confident. Why do I want confidence? Because it blocks out my self-doubt. Why- oh.
I think doing a lot of things “as a joke” is very funny. The pinnacle of comedy, if you will. But the catch to this form of comedy, is that not everyone is in for the joke. Best case scenario, everyone gets it and finds it very funny (e.g. proposing to a girl at Christmas Party in a drama performance of Love is An Open Door). Worst case scenario, nobody understands the joke and is very concerned about your behavior (e.g. calling your mom about a sewageside and bulimia joke you made).
So. My deep-rooted pursuit of comedy all came down to self-doubt. I think behind my social mask (at least for now) lies a lot in hiding the “quirky” side of me. Let’s call that my Scorpio Sun. My Scorpio Sun was my key driving force from 2016 to approximately 2020, where all I expanded my horizons by exploring different types of media. The Beatles, Oscar Wilde, Films (not movies, mind you) and Visual Kei fascinated me. I would announce my love for those subjects to everyone with pride, hoping they would react in awe or say “you have great taste, what an old soul”. Over the years, I have deemed that side of myself too edgy, pretentious and annoying, so I slowly buried that side so I am not as insufferable. I confronted that persona the same way I am confronting my funny side today. I feared that version of myself, the Scorpio Sun, was repulsive and disgusting. So, in order to hide that hipster away, I went on autopilot with my Sagittarius persona.
And that was my fatal error. My Sagittarius Rising: goofy, annoying, witty. That is the jester in me, the that’s-what-she-said persona that is intensely fun and enthusiastic. I can’t deny that this funny bone has always been in me, the pursuit of being the “class clown” without necessarily chasing popularity (i.e. would have been a Leo rising if I needed that). I was sure that this side of me I presented to everyone was my “best”. And so it goes, the autopilot mode in beta testing turns into my defense mechanism. My nonchalantness-of-it-all sometimes gives people the wrong idea of me being shallow, perverted, and distasteful. Jokers are good at telling jokes, but jesters are good at making a fool of themselves. I am a silly-ol’ jester delusional enough to think that they are being a great joker.
But there is no objectively “best” side. You see, my Scorpio Sun is quite repulsive indeed, but it gave me my unquestionable taste for aristocratic nostalgia. I need to un-brainwash myself from thinking that And that is why my Pisces Moon comes in: every time I write, my Pisces Moon takes the wheel and becomes my key driving force, being in too deep with my emotions. She’s quite underrated, I would give her credit for giving me my pursuit of ambiguity and androgyny. In the process of my BBL, I will bring back the balance of the three, for none of them could survive without one another. Is it possible? Will I finally make the lovely comprise with all three of them? This might take years, but I believe in my own ability in introspection.
Back to the question. “Being funny” is not inherently bad, but I do find that the root of my pursuit of comedy is quite suffocating. It has triumphed over other sides to my good qualities, and I probably got the short side of the deal (imagine trying THIS hard just to get people laugh). Hope this makes sense to you, it does to me. The constant motif of my identity and my prism of “sides” deserves to have its own Wikipedia page. Oh and, instead of using the zodiac BS, I could call them the Hipster, the Romantic, and the Jester. Consider this my version of Frida Kahlo’s introspective paintings.