On New Heights, Comedian Conan O’Brien discussed creating comedy with Hosts brothers Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce. Jason asked Conan whether there’s structure for comedy, for being funny.
Conan said, “There’s no book. No one can write it out on a board with chalk with x’s and o’s, and then you cut right and cut left.”
He explained, “Whenever people try to analyze comedy, I think it disappears… It’s like you’re trying to grab smoke. You go, ‘I got the smoke.’ Then you open your hand. It’s not there. That’s just kind of how it feels. There are so many things that are mysterious to me. I kind of never want to know how they work.”
I think there’s no definitive book on how to do anything. It’s like grabbing smoke. There are so many things mysterious to me, that I don’t care about. I let them remain a mystery. I’m good. At least for me, I try to figure out the mysterious that are meaningful to me. Grabbing smoke is like training. It’s not there, until it is. Until I figure it out for myself. Just train.
The late Mizukami Sensei said, “You don’t have to do it (Aikido technique) like I do. You have to make it work for yourself. You have to make it your own.” Truth. No, I wasn’t the same age, size, or strength as Sensei. I looked at what he did, how he did it, his distance, his timing. I felt how it felt when Sensei threw me. I was figuring it out. I practiced over, and over, and over again. Practice makes the unnatural, natural.
I did the Aikido technique. It didn’t look exactly like Sensei doing technique. Still, it had to work. I made it work. In the bigger picture, I made myself work, too. I invented my Aikido. I made Aikido my own. I invented myself, too.
Regardless of the force and speed of the attack, I throw the attacker with my feeling out, from my one point, ki. I didn’t do Aikido exactly like Mizukami Sensei, because I’m not him. And he wasn’t me. Still, I throw the attacker with the same feeling that Mizukami Sensei threw me. I practiced that over, and over, and over again. I just trained, until the mystery uncovered itself. I grabbed smoke until something was there, something revealed. Just train.
There’s intrinsic mystery in creation, in invention. For me that’s in Aikido, in martial arts. People write books and make YouTube videos on how to do Aikido step-by-step. I could read and copy the described technique. That’s truly like grabbing smoke, and when I open my hand: Nothing’s there.
Over the years, I’ve discovered that the journey of mastery in any art, in any discipline, starts from looking inside yourself, being quiet inside. I can create from there, create from nothing. I can only create from nothing. I keep creating. Keep inventing myself. I keep failing, until I don’t. I open my hand and it’s there. I got it. I just train. It’s not like I have to get somewhere.
Women are the great mystery to me. I’m not what women want. I’m 5’ 3”. I’m not handsome. I’m not exactly rich. I dated women on Match Dotcom. Obviously, I didn’t check a lot of the boxes in terms of being attractive, being hot. Despite all the information out there in Social Media, I really don’t think there’s the definitive manual on How to fall in love with a Woman, who will love me back. Although I could be wrong.
Falling in love remains the mystery to me. In one sense, I never want to know how that all works. So, I keep grabbing smoke. Keep training. I work on myself, not on others. That’s all that I can do. I work on being the best Man that I can be, be the best person that I can be. Who knows? Lightning could strike. I grab smoke, until love is there.
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Photo by Jakob Rosen on Unsplash
