Envy. Guilt. Desperation. Regret. Welcome to the world of comedy writing, according to big Canadian bear Pete Johansson

A couple weeks ago I was asked to write an article about my process for writing comedy. My schedule has been busy, and such was my excuse. But more authentically, I fear the truth of this request, so with reluctance I have completed the request as follows.

I write unpredictably and without a plan. I’d love to tell you I have some schedule or style, a regiment for fail-safe exploration and discovery of funny, but that would be a lie. Here is the truth.

I write desperately, and fearful of not having a funny thought in my body. I write reactively and soberly to the things I see around me, long rambling paragraphs of dredge and self-congratulatory exercises in intellectual exposition that try to satisfy some roughly constructed facade that I am an artist.

I write fraudulently, on topics I hate, which are the only tools I know will produce easy laughs, as I dedicated my life to this. And I sadly realise that every time I go to write, it gets less and less easy.

I write regretfully, that inspiration that once filled my soul as a young comic, has been washed away by cynicism and bitterness at the difficulty in simply being silly.

I poach moments of laughter more readily from conversations, and stories I tell in pubs and green rooms, than I ever do sitting at a desk, where I merely empty my head messily onto endless unfinished files that litter my home screen.

And every once in a while when I stumble upon an idea that feels workable, I mechanically and cowardly try it, with a shameful apology to an audience, so I am protected from its failure. I abandon it alone, so I may continue unfettered by its miserable response that I was the principle mechanic in.

I write enviously. While I watch the brilliance of my fellow comics, pound out show after show of miraculous and insightful mirth, my keystrokes hit with a resentful thud as I weigh each joke against those of my peers and sentence them to obscurity, the mental equivalent of an abortion, where I contest that the premise felt no pain at its termination, except for the regret I have for conceiving it.

I write with a measuring stick to my own demise. As an industry changes or becomes more truthful in its form as a popularity contest rigged by profit brokers, I see my ageing corpse decomposing amongst opportunities shovelled toward empty shiny vessels, new comedians ready to never even consider the insufferable sameness required to be utilised as a moneymaker for the long haul. Instead I listlessly fumble together a sarcastic phrase, with a built-in sad obscurity to guarantee a limited appeal to help justify my planned obsolescence as an unemployable old jokesmith forgotten amongst a mosaic of destroyed souls.

I write incredulously, and with guilt, that I can even be afforded the life I have whilst providing nothing truly meaningful to the world around me, understanding that the lottery of birth has afforded me such advantage that I have been able to coast nearly to death without actually making any type of resonantly positive impact in a world that has over provided me with so much excess while knowing full well that the torture, death and the tragedy of greater minds around this planet don’t stop, alleviate or have solace due to any of my jokes.

My process is to try to come to terms with the very real fact that existence is utterly pointless, and as a joke upon this absurdity, I have compounded its pointlessness with my pitiful silly career choice. If granted a moment of clarity as I pass to the next realm as to what I have abandoned by shear laziness or indifference, I only hope the pain in my regret doesn’t fulfil the prophesy of hell.

Also I think animals are funny.