I am Pagliacci

This blog has gotten too light. I've let myself get dragged down into digital jestership, because it's quicker and easier to churn out wry and witty content than to actually work through problems. I've historically had a problem with cracking too many jokes in classes and meetings, mostly because I'm bored and don't really care about what's being discussed. I'm doing better with that, but it still manifests a fundamental problem with managing long / short term trade-offs. It's hard to sit on my hands and think about my future when there's a gag to be had.

There's a great "joke" I know from Alan Moore (and others'?) graphic novel The Watchmen. It feels too timeless to originate from there, probably and old Yiddish thing. Goes like this.

A tired man comes into a shrink's office and the shrink says "What's the problem?" and he says "I'm so depressed, what with global warming and terrorism and children dying in gutters throughout the third world and crime and violence in the streets and poor people eating dog food, I want to shoot myself." The doctor replies, "You're depressed. You need to take your mind off all of that. You know what, the circus is in town, and you should go. The great clown Pagliacci is performing! That'll be just the thing." And the guy says "But doctor, I am Pagliacci."

Much is in order in my life, but there is much to be resolved, for which, sadly, the blog is not the correct forum.



At least that's how I felt this morning. I'm marginally better later in the day.