So true it's funny
It's really a form of making people feel seen
Just over a month ago, I wrote about living in a consistent way due to deep self-knowledge, and I wrote that because I’d learned that an old friend from my hometown died, and that was my takeaway from reflecting on her life: she knew exactly who she was, and that made her consistent and unwavering as a person.
Today, I am reflecting in that way again after learning that another old friend died this morning. I’m thinking about how it had been far too long since we’d talked, about long conversations we had at one time or another, her love of the campy and kitschy, and how the rug has been pulled out from under her now, both as a human, and as a writer.
I’m also reflecting on her life and what I can take with me from knowing her and noting that it was impossible to know her and not immediately recognize how wildly funny and wonderfully irreverent she was, and that came from telling the absolute truth at all times, and doing so in her own unique and hilarious way. She did hard things and broached any topic seemingly unflinchingly because she spoke to the truth of things so deeply and accessibly through humor and vulnerability.
And, the secret to comedy writing is not in trying to be funny, but in naming things a casual observer might think but wouldn’t think to name aloud.
So, that is our task today: write about something vulnerably and deeply and find some humor in the depths of the realness. That means: not going for a joke or a pun, not going for a laugh at anyone’s expense, but simply, speaking straightforwardly to the truth of a thing, so truthfully and so deeply that it becomes wildly funny, even when it sometimes goes super cringe because it’s so true. Because it’s easy to couch that in “observational humor” but the reason, say, Curb Your Enthusiasm and other shows like it work is because they’re naming things so fully that sometimes we think, “oh my gahhhd, he just named that thing I think too!” and makes us all feel a little more seen.
And, that is a legacy anyone must surely be proud of leaving.
Let’s write.
