Wednesday, October 26, 2016 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, October 26, 2016 // The Statement
5B
by Nabeel Chollampat, Statement Deputy Editor
Tears of a Clown
T
o examine oneself — as one usually does in
“Personal” “Statements” — a good place to start
might be one’s online presence. Let’s see. Func-
tionally, my Facebook serves little purpose other than
to like ClickHole articles. LinkedIn, for me, is a place
to privately endorse my friends for things like “Tight
Gas” and “Stretching.” My Twitter is purely a farce:
I do nothing but retweet from the deepest recesses of
that strange, esoteric phenomenon known as Weird
Twitter.
When you (I) put it like that, this examination has
been incredibly depressing. But I promise I’m normal.
I guess it makes sense, though. This resume of
online fuckery is of a piece with my general reputation
as “the funny one.” That’s a nice moniker to have. It
suggests I may serve some social purpose after all, and
who doesn’t love to laugh?
To be sure, this is an astoundingly arrogant essay
to write. I’m working under the precarious assump-
tion that other people think I’m funny, as well as the
implicit acknowledgement that, yes, the fact that I’m
writing this means that, on some level, I’d like to think
I’m funny, too. (It’s better not to mention the third pre-
sumption: that people are still reading this.)
But no matter: Writing to be published on the inter-
net is itself little more than a pathological need for
external validation, so let’s ignore that shit.
I remember once performing stand-up — I use the
term lightly — at the tender age of 12. My mother’s col-
lege reunion seemed, to her, to be the perfect venue to
force her middle-school son to do something he is in no
way qualified to do. I was too naïve to realize either my
status as child prop or how utterly embarrassing this
would be. I got up there and dutifully read off a print-
ed Word document of what some (no one) would call
“jokes.” This lasted for 10 excruciating minutes. When
it was all said and done, I should have been convicted
for war crimes: This was, by far, the worst comedic
performance the world has ever witnessed.
Years later, I would recognize this moment as the
one that broke me as a mortal being and has rendered
me incapable of feeling anything. Thanks, Mom. But
what pitied laughs I received during that Tight Five, I
could recognize as some form of appreciation. No one
was laughing because I had, in that moment, channeled
a young Richard Pryor. They were laughing because,
hey, look, there’s a poor little kid trying to tell jokes
because his mom forced him to, the least we could do
is make sure he doesn’t cry.
Reader, I cried (eventually).
Here I was at an odd emotional crossroads. This
supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again had led to an
unfathomable bout of pre-pubescent crying. I didn’t
know why then, but I think I might now. From then on,
the two emotions became, to me, inextricably linked,
conflated in the worst possible way.
When Robin Williams passed away in 2014, the
media landscape (that’s a horrible phrase, isn’t it?)
was inundated with, among other things, variously
titled riffs on the “Sad Clown” narrative. This trend
was annoying for many reasons, but chief among them
was this: that weeks later, the discussion had subsided
in favor of broader, more accessible eulogies. No one
wanted to read any more about that knotty buzzword
“mental health.”
The link between mental illness and comedy is
a thorny subject to broach, and I make no claims, of
course, to successfully analyze one or the other. I
barely understand either. Rather, it’s that disquieting
relationship between other people’s joy and your own
sadness, between the optics of your smiling friends
and your own downturned head, between the surface-
level satisfaction of making someone else laugh and
the emptiness that comes with wondering why you
can’t feel that way yourself — this is what I’ve tried to
figure out for so long.
What does it mean, really, to be “funny?”
What it means to be funny depends on who you’re
asking. To everyone else, Nabeel’s hilarious. Nabeel’s
that guy. Nabeel’s always armed with the clever retorts
and the spur-of-the-moment wit (which, in fact, is
often less impeccably well-timed and more embarrass-
ingly planned out). I am nothing more than a random
joke generator. I am not allowed to get serious, or say
something unironically, lest that permanently off the
switch on everyone else’s pleasure. I am not a person
harboring wants and complexities and dissonant emo-
tions, but rather a curious object. I am not a human to
be wanted, desired, loved. Nabeel’s so funny.
To yourself, you are even more curious an object. You
are impressed, sometimes, by your own ability to turn
a phrase, to come up with a response that’s agreeable
or pleasant or — best-case scenario — funny. You are,
however, incurably removed. You recognize that, yes,
other people find this shit funny, but you can’t bring
yourself to smile. Once the cheap thrills of an earned
laugh subside, there is nothing left. No, there is some-
thing: It is simply emptiness — and with it, sadness.
Truly, there’s little difference between occupying
this role of the standard social group and being the
token minority friend (double whammy!): I am not
afforded the same agency as everyone else. I know who
I am: I am by turns snarky and sad, measured by cheer-
fully dark sarcasm and tempered by toxically low self-
confidence, equally steeped in both heavy irony and
incredible loneliness. But my reputation is “the funny
one.”
Wow, this got needlessly dramatic, didn’t it? Objec-
tively, there’s nothing quite as satisfying than making
someone laugh. And complaining about this ability
— whether it’s imagined or not — might be a bit hyp-
ocritical. After all, what is being funny if not a desper-
ate craving for attention? And now I want, well, more?
Fuck off, man.
I probably cried that night because I was embar-
rassed. There’s nothing probing or insightful about
that. But that doesn’t change the fact that I will never
be without my sense of humor or my inherent sadness.
There is not one without the other. Funnily enough — I
don’t know what that means.
by Maria Robins-Somerville, Daily Arts Writer
Jack and Maria
“
I am a twin” is the perfect fun fact. Some-
thing relatively uncommon that doesn’t
change. I hear little gasps or whispers
— like they’re wondering about a parallel me
that exists, or whether we parade around in
matching outfits finishing each other’s sen-
tences.
I often get the question “Does your twin go
here?” to which I could simply respond, “No,
he doesn’t,” but these days my response is pre-
pared and longer.
“No. Jack has Asperger’s, a high-function-
ing form of autism, and he goes to a small
school in Massachusetts for kids with learn-
ing and developmental challenges. He takes
classes at a nearby community college where
they help him with social skills and job readi-
ness.” Usually the other person is quiet. I
don’t know what they’re thinking, but maybe
they envisioned some “Parent Trap” scenario.
Maybe they imagined us running in similar
circles of friends or having dual graduations, hitting all the
big milestones at the same time.
They imagine us both like me, neurotypical
— a word that
describes people not under the umbrella of those diagnosed
with Asperger’s, other autism spectrum disorders or other
neurologically atypical patterns of thought or behavior. It’s
hard for me to explain what exactly separates the way Jack
thinks from the way I do; the only way to explain it would
be to conjure him up, as everything I say feels reductive or
vague.
He was diagnosed with Asperger’s when we were tod-
dlers. Though we developed verbally and physically in time
with each other, my mother noticed a few significant dif-
ferences between us. Jack seemed less connected and he
engaged in repetitive behaviors that he couldn’t seem to
control. In 2013 the Asperger’s diagnosis was replaced by
the umbrella term autism spectrum disorder, but it is still
the way Jack identifies himself. It’s a diagnosis that includes
high intelligence, socially awkward behaviors and repeti-
tive or restrictive interests; I’ll be honest in saying that this
definition doesn’t really mean anything to me. People on the
spectrum are so different from each other, much of the cri-
teria is fuzzy and Jack both does and doesn’t fit the textbook
definitions.
I could tell you that Jack has always been a little unlike
most of the guys my age. He is often quiet and almost always
compassionate, rarely expressing dislike for anyone. He
isn’t competitive and has encyclopedic knowledge of cer-
tain music and television facts that he reveals randomly and
surprisingly. He likes routine, SpongeBob and his iPad. He
is incredibly sensitive and often mistakes intent to correct
behavior for a jab at his whole character. Yet he has a grasp
on sarcasm and forms of nuanced comedy that is thought
atypical of those on the autism spectrum.
Jack is a man of few words so we don’t talk just to fill
space. In “The Curious Incident of Dog in the Nighttime,”
a book both Jack and I love, the protagonist is Christopher,
a young man on the autism spectrum who dislikes small
talk. We joke, calling this “doing chatting,” and Jack says
he doesn’t like it either (I assume most neurotypical people
also dislike small talk and are just better at hiding it).
Academic professionals told my parents Jack might never
be able to read, let alone graduate high school or live alone.
Today he reads well and often; however, reading compre-
hension and articulating his thoughts about a text through
verbal or written language is incredibly challenging. He
has navigated the complex New York subway system for
six years as if with an internal GPS, committed his time
regularly helping kids with Down syndrome and serving at
a fast-paced soup kitchen in Lower Manhattan. He’s lived
away from home for over a year. Aside from an occasional
harsh tone or F-bomb to an annoying sister, I can’t remem-
ber a time when he was unkind.
Though Jack loves to jokingly remind me that he was
born six minutes earlier and is therefore the oldest in our
family, questions of birth order are complex. Measuring
age by rotations around the sun doesn’t really work for us.
When I was the first to leave for college, I knew that in a
functional way, I was the singular oldest child.
It was never a question whether I would go to college,
but rather which competitive and well-respected college I
would choose. I have always had standards — for friends,
grades, writing, morality, all of it — to a maybe impossible
level. I overschedule, overextend and work quickly. Despite
normal bouts of laziness or procrastination, I admit reluc-
tantly that I hardly cut myself slack. What I mean to say
is Jack and I are close, but we exist in seemingly different
worlds.
Since preschool he had always been in a smaller class
than me, cloistered away. He often practiced echolalia, a
pretty word for repeating common phrases to himself, a
calming mechanism, unsavory to the public. He would
ask people how many doors their houses had and how old
they were, something that was endearing at age 4 but soon
became inappropriate. In elementary school, when kids
would ask me why he was the way he was or why we didn’t
go to the same school, I would turn red, finding myself at a
loss for words. I remember being 5 or 6, when Jack and I sat
glued to “Arthur” or “SpongeBob SquarePants.” He would
cover his ears during the theme songs but be entranced by
the cartoons the whole time. For a long time, he insisted on
only wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts during the
summer.
Mental health professionals think people with
autism have heightened senses. Some compare it to
being inside a fun house. This explained some of the
clothing particularity and why he would cover his
ears, and even maybe the perfect pitch in his singing
voice that brought people to tears when they heard
Jack singing Sinatra’s “Fly me to the Moon” on our
answering machine in the early 2000s. Maybe it
explains his desire to spend time alone. It is thought
that kids like Jack go somewhere else, to another
headspace, when the sensory overload gets takes
over.
I’ve had trouble with this idea of “somewhere else,”
even as a self-proclaimed daydreamer and a cultiva-
tor of an imaginative life. A stubborn part of me ques-
tions this other world despite an otherwise open
mind. I think I buy into the twin clichés sometimes,
wanting our minds to be in perfect sync with each
other, a cosmic pairing no one else would understand.
In the space of Jack’s certain quietness in a loud
and chaotic world, I sometimes notice things about him that
I only know how to explain by the fact that we are twins.
Though he never expressly said anything to me about it, I
urged my parents to give Jack more independence when we
were teenagers because I had instincts that he was ready.
I don’t mean to speak for my brother or assume access to
his every thought, but I know he has grown my capacity for
empathy and a critical eye toward a world that often dis-
counts an “unconventional” mind.
More than wishing that my brother were different, I am
stubborn in wishing that the world were, that I didn’t have
to think of an ableist slur or a punch hurled at Jack when he
gets flustered or overwhelmed. I wish such a narrow-mind-
ed achievement model didn’t loom over us both, dispropor-
tionately affecting people like Jack who learn and develop
in ways deemed abnormal or unconventional.
I feel a twinge of guilt when I think of a confused 9-year-
old me — her quietness about Jack. I think of how I wish I
could say to her, “Your twin brother has a boundless bravery
and compassion that I wish you could understand.” I think
maybe that shame left somewhere around seventh grade,
when I tried to comfort Jack one night when he was dis-
traught over being bullied at school, a systematic problem
that the school had been neglecting. I knew that my quiet
brother was much wiser inside than he was able to let on
and had a capacity for astronomical feeling.
Jack proves daily that our minds are mysterious, varied
and without need to show themselves ostentatiously. He
reminds me to be goofy and patient and often forces our
family to lighten up when the mood gets heavy. He is incred-
ibly affectionate and remembers the silliest moments of our
childhood that will always make me smile, half because of
what they are and half because it is Jack telling them in his
way. I think we’ve come to know that our developmental
milestones look different, and that it’s OK because it has to
be and it should be.
I wish to embrace the fun-fact twin answer so fully, in
all of its complexity and nuance, something only made pos-
sible by pulling my brother into the circle with me — so that
everyone in the room can feel how lucky I am to have him
as my other half.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMILIE FARRUGIA