Accepting Myself as a Comedian

People always ask me why I chose to do comedy, but I didn’t. My life is a fucking comedy, and I’ve spent more time running away from it than choosing it. I never looked at Jerry Seinfeld and said, “I want to be famous like him.” Sure, I enjoyed watching stand-up comedy as a kid. I remember listening to Mitch Hedburg’s CD, “Strategic Grill Locations” in the family office with my sister, as we laughed our guts out and fired up another game of Roller Coaster Tycoon.

We had two computers, and she would play a game or message her friends on the right computer while I would write some ridiculous story on the left. I wasn’t trying to become anything, I wasn’t trying to get anything out of the stories, I just liked getting lost in the comical absurdities of whatever crossed my mind. I would let her read the stories, but I wouldn’t show them to anyone else. And then I grew up.

The world always wants to know what we’d like to become. People look at you, a confused adolescent filled with angst, hope, and wonder, and they ask you what you want to do with your life. “What do you want to be?” they inquire. It’s rare for anyone to inquire into what you actually are. It’s true for ourselves, too. We spend so much time trying to become something rather than allow ourselves to be who we really are. And it’s exhausting.

It's exhausting to run away from yourself because you can’t. No matter how hard you try, you’re still here. I’ve stretched myself to the weirdest corners of the world running from myself. I went and raised monkeys in the Amazon rainforest and almost died because I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t want the world to see who I was, so I ran. I ran from the world, I ran from the people I love most, and I ran from myself.

A lot of people hear that I do comedy and they ask me if I want to be famous like (insert famous comedian here), but for me it was always the opposite. I’ve been running away from fame this whole time. I’ve been trying to toe this impossible line of becoming a successful comedian without anyone knowing who I am. Why? Why do I choose to make things more difficult than they need to be? Why do I choose to make things impossible? I mean, sure, I like a challenge, but good Lord… what am I doing?

Like any comedian, there’s parts about me that I don’t like. Learning to accept those parts is a critical point in any comic’s journey, and it’s something I’m coming face to face with now. I’ve always said comedy is a journey of self-exploration, because being yourself on stage is the hardest thing to do. People are deathly afraid of going on stage because they run the risk of being seen. We hide who we are from the world every day. We speak in certain tones, enact acceptable social behaviors, and play pretend in our corner office. It feels safer not to be ourselves because if someone rejects us, they’re not really rejecting us, so what risk is there?

I can bomb on stage pretending to be someone else and it means nothing. But I feel that. It feels meaningless to me, too. Last night I bombed on stage, but it was me. And you know what? It felt fucking great. I didn’t care at all. I wasn’t just saying I don’t care and then being sad about it like most of us comics do. I genuinely felt good about it. I felt good about it because I didn’t need the audience to laugh. I didn’t need their approval of me. I didn’t need anything from them at all. I just went up there and I talked about what I needed to talk about and allowed myself to be.

I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of fighting the life that chose me, and I’m tired of fighting the people who choose me. I’m tired of fighting me, choosing myself. I’ve felt so guilty about loving myself and about people loving me. I have the most amazing person in the world who loves me for me, and I push her away because I don’t want to accept it. I don’t want to accept it because I’m not accepting myself. I’m not accepting the parts about me that are great, too. I keep trying to be more than I am because I always feel like I’m never enough for myself. But it’s me who’s doing it.

I’m the one creating the expectations of what I should be rather than accepting myself for who I am. “What do you want to be?” they ask me, but it’s me who asks myself. If desire is the root of suffering, I’m suffering because I desire to be something I’m not. I am my own greatest con man, convincing myself I’m free of desire while I desire to be more than I am. So, this is goodbye to the man I want to be and hello to the new me. The new me that’s the old me and the current me. Just me. Here, and never alone.

-Jason Scott Brendel

Jason Scott Brendel is an author, comedian, and deranged lunatic living in Austin, Texas. You can support his creative career by purchasing his book of laugh-out-loud poetry on Amazon.