This week, we read some more very lovely writings, one of which was a chapter on Silence from Carl Phillips' 'My Trade Is Mystery', and another, which is a response blog post to this piece of writing by Devin Kelly. (Please read Kelly's piece -- it's life affirming stuff.)
Our free writing assignment was an extension of this. We had about 10 minutes to write using the prompt 'My Trade is _____'.
I spent a solid chunk of the time feeling like an imposter, and like I was being challenged to condense my entire identity into one word. I guess this is quite telling of my relationship to creating things (writing, doodling, anything that requires intentional thought to be brought to life.)
But then, I said "fuck it!", and wrote something anyway.
My Trade Is Humour
A good sense of humour goes a long way, as they say. But they also struggle to take humour seriously.
Humour is levity, humour is observation, humour is the light that shines bright exposing the truth; But it can also be the heavy cloak that veils it when the truth is feeling rather timid.
Humour is an in-between -- both brave and shy, direct and indirect, sure and uncertain.
I feel sheepish while writing this -- like I am trying to make a bold assertion about something that may not even be that deep. This, to me, is my conditioning about 'humour' in action.
I guess they still take up a lot of room in my head.
What's so funny to me is that when I read this out in class, I was told "I've used deflection well in the writing". As if I was consciously trying to do this. Perhaps I am just a person who deflects a lot. I also think its funny that this piece of writing is so very unfunny.