Be careful what you wish for.

There was a time when I thought making people smile was enough. At that time I thought if I could just make people laugh I would be able to save souls. I wished for the power to think and say things that would make people's bellies ache with wanton laughter. I prayed long and hard to have that, more than anything in the world. That time has long since come and gone.

There was a time when I thought I could make people laugh. At that time I thought if I put my heart into it, I'd really find everybody's funny bone and have them laughing at things I say. At great expense I worked to become humorous, and to do that I'd cast all natural perception of seriousness aside. Call it the comedian's gambit. That time has long since come and gone.

There was a time I began to feel good about myself. Everywhere I went people smiled. Comedy was a light bulb that illuminated not the room, but the people inside it. And it felt good at that time. It felt good that I was being able to do what I wanted to do, to fulfill what I had intended. Light up the world; set the world on fire. But that too, came to pass.

Everything came to pass.

Laughter as I learned could never save souls. More than anything it's a drug, and one that's rarely lasting a solution to any problem. The best medicine, but a medicine for the moment. If ever it made just things worse.

Being funny, as I learned, would change people. It transformed everything it touched -for better or worse. To see the world from a different view you would distance yourself from the crowd you please. And for that, clowns are the loneliest creatures in this world, always laughed at, never laughed with. A pound of humanity for a pound of humor. For with all the seriousness gone, all that's left would be the heaviness of wit. That much at least, I learned.

And the light? It's just that - light. As soon as the source is gone, all radiance is gone. It was, like many good things, temporal. And then soon, the center would soon drown in its brightness - leaving nothing but empty reminiscence. Isn't that how stars die? Consumed by their own glow? I guess it applies for everything in this world.

For every tragedy, send in the clowns.

For every clown, send in the tragedies.

Be careful what you wish for.