Who was the first clown?

Pound for pound, one of the smartest decisions I’ve ever made in my life was joining a clown troupe.“Thought you were already a clown?” was the most common response I got from the people in my life with whom I shared this news, and to that I say, “Yes, but now it’s considered an art form rather than a complicated amalgamation of personality defects. And you are required to clap.”Despite the fact that I had zero formal clowning experience prior to joining the troupe, this has been perhaps the least surprising personal revelation that I’ve ever shared with the people in my life. Because as it turns out, when you have a lifetime’s worth of experience being a generally clownish person, people kinda assume you were already doing that anyway.So what have I learned during my time as a clown?The most fundamental thing I need you to understand about the art of clown is that it is primarily about seeing the world with curiosity and wonder. When you embrace clown, you see the world in a way that…