Clowning is like entering an alternative reality. It started when I enrolled in a summer school clown workshop in Brisbane in 2003. Using a series of activities, the instructor helped us comprehend how truth can be represented via our physical bodies. One of these positions was dubbed “office worker” by him. The teacher asked us to imagine that we had a task to finish. We were instructed to maintain little eye contact with the other participants as we moved about the room. The instructor told us to breathe quickly and deeply. I found that the physical posture of an “office worker” is very physically demanding to sustain for extended periods. There is a strong sense of internal discipline required to force our bodies to `labour’ while being driven by an external goal.
`Emotional labour’ is the phrase that describes the way we discipline our emotions to conform to the workplace. Most front-line positions need employees to deliver “service with a smile.” Front-line employees are required to manage their true feelings and align their emotional state with the goals and values of the organisation. Emotional labour is the socially acceptable mask we put on to fit in with society. Wearing a mask has certain advantages. A vulnerable person’s faith in the helping professions is damaged when they are treated poorly. A business will likely go bankrupt if their staff are rude or indifferent to the needs of customers. It makes sense to behave in a way that aligns with social norms or business principles. We incur a high cost to internalise the self-control needed to regulate our emotions. I discovered that “office worker” for extended periods is very taxing on the body. Not to mention exhausting.
Strolling down the Mall at the end of the day, I sat down to observe people as they were walking. I was in a very relaxed, open, and playful mood. I looked ahead and saw a group of men and women dressed in formal work clothes walking through the Mall. I felt a surge of excitement and joy– an epiphany – ‘they’re in office worker’! This was a transformative moment. I wasn’t making any personal judgments about the people walking through the Mall. An ordinary moment yielded an amazing discovery – a brief moment of ‘street theatre’ in an otherwise ordinary day in the Brisbane City Mall. Like the little child in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” clowns, fools and jesters possess the “unsophisticated” perception to “see things as they are and now how we imagine them to be.”
A clown philosophy
The clown’s red nose is the doorway to an alternative universe. In the clown’s universe, the normal rules of reality are suspended. The energy of the clown is an invitation to freedom. The freedom and joy we experienced as children. The clown is the imaginative, funny, and sometimes disruptive side of ourselves. “Putting on a character” or “acting” is not what clowning entails. It’s the consciousness that arises from a state of astonishment, spontaneity, and childlike wonderment. When we are young, everything seems brand-new and is always being discovered and learned. When I was younger, I pretended to have superman abilities by draping an ordinary sheet around my neck and jumping off the roof to soar into the sky. After several grazed knees, I discovered that the law of gravity was “krypotonite” to my fantasy of flying. As grown-ups, we are prone to overthink and create excuses not to be playful. Through the clown, we can rediscover the realm of imagination. In our imagination, anything is possible. It’s never too late for adults to re-experience child-like joy without the bruises!
Foolish Times 