Something to Keep
“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
Conan O’Brien
A Second Look
It’s interesting how we often quote philosophers or Nobel laureates, but dismiss everyone else. Sometimes I find that wisdom may come from unexpected places, and one such place is comedy. You have to be a specific kind of person to do comedy. You must be persistent, smart, and observant. Behind all the jokes, there’s usually someone who can tell you a lot about the world we live in.
There’s also a mystery to comedy. You can’t explain most jokes, and the moment you try to, they stop being funny. Yet comedy unites when most other institutions divide. When we share a laugh, there’s a sense of complicity. I honestly believe we should never lose the ability to laugh, especially laugh at ourselves.
When you make fun of yourself, you become invincible. I mean, who would laugh at the guy who’s already laughing at himself? Yet we’re constantly becoming more sensitive and boring. Telling jokes requires developing a hard skin, but in return, you might develop bonds with others that are stronger than anything else.
Something I Liked
Although some of the content I’ve seen lately could be classified as self-development, I can’t stop thinking about this video. What do Conan O’Brien, Patton Oswalt, and Slipknot have in common? More than you’d expect, apparently.
As I wrote above, there’s something about comedy that can’t be put into words. How do you even describe what’s being talked about in the video? I guess you either find it funny or you don’t. It also helps that he’s making fun of the kind of music I used to love as a teenager.
I’ve always been a fan of Conan. There’s something so silly about his style that I always found attractive. It also helped that he brought so many different music acts to his shows in the 00s. Those were formative years for me, especially when it comes to music. By the way, the next season of his travel show, Conan Needs a Friend, is about to debut, and you can always watch past seasons if you haven’t.
