Beginners Mind: The Ideal State for Writing Comedy

One thing I have noticed since I began teaching comedy is the imagination and creativity that comes out of my students, many of who are attempting to write and perform comedy for the first time. I can only attribute this to the idea of the “Beginners Mind.” As the Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki states, ‘In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.’

Not saying I’m an expert, but…dang, do I relate.

Over the past decades, I have seen TOO much standup comedy. I can not watch specials, many of which seem curated and polished within an inch of life. I do like to watch pro comics in person, but my participation as an audience member amounts to quiet admiration of their material or performance in the way you might, say, admire a baseball player or gymnast. “Oh, that’s a good punchline,” “He nailed that bit,” “Good crowd work,” “Why is he asking the couple in front if they boned?” There is respect or critique or, the worse, a desire to offer some advice or pitch an idea. (Please ask first).

I work hard to write new material but barring some traumatic event, health issue or break up, it often it feels like scraping the bottom of the peanut butter jar. I mean, it’s there. I have no doubt that an ocean of material exists in most everybody. But creativity, ebbs and flows. It comes in waves of productivity and then it sort of peters out. I have so many voices in my head saying “don’t talk about that” or “this is not funny.” I talk myself out of so many ideas because they don’t go anywhere or seem bad. But it takes a bad idea or “hack” idea to get to an excellent joke.

The more material I write, the more I think that I need to NOT watch any comedy. Sometimes I need to ask myself: what is important to me? what needs to be talked about? Or I need to return to what makes me laugh. Which is dumb stuff, like people falling down. I sometimes think comedy audiences are bad for comics. I have seen brilliant and hard working comics capable of scathing political commentary resort to dick jokes because the audience seems quiet or maybe hostile. At the end of the day, the job is to illicit laughter. You gotta do what you gotta do. I like to think of myself as someone who refuses to pander, who stands by my topics (my period) and jokes (about my period), but nothing saves the day like a dick joke. (CAVEAT: I do not write dick jokes…I might write something else about them like a haiku, or blog post, make some art, mixed media, water color…decoupage….boom.)

But new, fresh starting out comics are overflowing with ideas. They don’t have all this stuff in their head blocking them from themselves. The reality is that I really don’t know any more than anyone else. So what I am trying to say is that while beginner or new or never tried comics may not have the years of experience to inform them, they also don’t have the years of experience of audiences who want the standard fare . Being new at things is sacred. Committing to a new passion is THE EDGE of life. It sharpens your brain, opens synapses and let’s a burst of imagination flow through you. It’s also a good time.