Time seems to drag when we’re stuck in a loop of mindless scrolling, but what if I told you that embracing a structured routine could change that? This episode unpacks the experience of navigating friendships with people who embody the traits of a jester—those who use humor as a shield but may leave us feeling emotionally drained. I share my personal journey with these relationships, exploring how the need for constant laughter can overshadow deeper connections. We reflect on the balance between humor and authenticity, questioning whether jesters truly understand the impact of their words. Join me as I sift through the complexities of these dynamics and contemplate the importance of meaningful friendships in our lives.

Takeaways:

1. Time might feel like it drags when we have nothing to do, yet a packed schedule can make it fly by.
2. Setting up a podcast can create a structure that pushes us to produce more regularly and feel accountable.
3. Interactions with jesters can be tricky; their humor often masks deeper insecurities and emotional immaturity.
4. Jesters can dominate social situations, making jokes that silence others and create an uncomfortable atmosphere.
5. The balance between humor and authenticity is vital in relationships; we need depth beyond laughter.
6. Reflecting on past friendships with jesters reveals the importance of genuine connection over superficial humor.

email me at cmonkxxx@gmail.com

If by any chance you say to yourself that time goes too slowly.

I used to be a thing.

I don't think it is anymore.

We have endless supply of things to distract ourselves with.

I think it's a common complaint.

There's just never enough time.

But if you do feel like that, if you've got nothing to do other than scrolling and doing days go slowly.

First of all, I envy you.

I do.

It's already middle of January and I've made a note, mental note to myself that said, oh, I just published an episode.

No, it's already over a week and I'm not ready.

Yesterday I was one day late, today I'm two days late.

So here it is, recording.

And then the advice is, if you want your life to feel like it's going faster, set up a podcast.

I feel like nothing else chases you as much as schedule where you need to produce content, where you need to apply yourself like this.

And you feel that maybe advice is to set up a routine.

You don't need to set up a podcast necessarily, just set up routine around something that you do publicly.

So there is no excuse.

You know, like, I don't think I'm disappointing anybody by releasing late as I do today, but I'm disappointed with myself that I.

That I'm releasing late.

Two days late.

Yeah, for me, this year goes as fast as any, any recent year in the recent history.

I really have no idea what's going on.

But with this week, I will be creating a backlog.

So things will start improving, things will start appearing more regularly.

I welcome new listeners.

Thank you for tuning in.

I appreciate you showing up.

As always, I welcome you to send me an email.

Introduce yourself.

I know it's not very common thing to do, but I don't use social media.

I might be somewhere, there might be some zombie profiles floating around, but I. I don't use it regularly, but do send me an email.

Email address is in the description, but it's simonkxxx@gmail.com.

send me a line.

Maybe you'd like to be on the podcast.

Maybe you'd like to share your reflection, your comments.

And there is a website also in the works.

It's going to be very simple and I'm hoping to release it this week.

But let's get straight to it what today's episode will be about.

There will be a topic, something I discovered as a term, as something that's quite established, but I didn't really have a name for it until recently.

It's a type of personality I've been in contact with for my whole adult life.

Although I've met only a handful of people like that.

Literally three people like that.

And I wonder how common this type of personality is.

What I've read is that this type of person personality is called Jester.

Do you know Jester?

English is not my first language.

So, you know, some things don't snap immediately.

For me, jester in my mother tongue is something else and I don't need definition for it.

But if you don't know what that is, it's basically a silly character that was employed by the count or a king.

The sole role of that person was to entertain.

It was comedian.

He was comedian for a royal family, for high level individuals.

And this person would not only make crack jokes, but also makes sort of a commentary on the world, on the state.

And this person used to be quite tragic because this person could make jokes out of anybody, about anybody, guilt free.

Although if King wouldn't like the joke, if it would touch King too deeply, he would just execute.

Poor fella.

There were ladies jesters also.

Apparently I'm not a scholar of history, so I don't really know much about exactly what went down and how things went.

But you're welcome to go and check this stuff out.

But today we don't, we have comedians and there is of course a lot of still hate around them.

Some jokes are not landing well and people do get cancelled, which is maybe an equivalent of execution.

I don't know if cancel culture still is active.

I don't know whatever happened to this.

I don't really follow that stuff.

But we did have a form of execution for jesters, for comedians just three years ago.

Well, I don't really have any comedian friends, certainly nobody professional.

But I did meet people who have this psychological trait of a jester and what it is, it is still a comedian.

It is a charismatic person that tries to win.

I don't know if can hear the washing machine going crazy in the bathroom.

Apologies for that.

It's just part of the show.

Okay?

The jester person wants to be in the center of attention.

They crack jokes just to win in the social hierarchy.

Now what makes a joke, you need to have a wit or you need to be very bold.

Now jesters I've met and jesters I really have issue with are those who make jokes that are really low hanging fruits.

And the whole mechanism is to, to make offensive jokes that will make people embarrassed, that will make people kind of go, go more within and be quiet.

So jester can Speak, you know, so they will.

They will say something boldly right in the moment of entering the room, and the room is silent, and then they can do whatever they want.

I'm exaggerating this, but I feel like I'm quite accurate.

This is more or less what's happening.

If.

If there's anyone in that crowd in the room that tries to be more visible, they will get into active verbal fight with them.

There will be, you know, trying to roast each other, basically.

So if there are two jesters in the room, that's a recipe for disaster, because jesters will not accept another jester.

There's only one jester in a kingdom, all right?

That's a rule that's still valid today, even though jester stands for something very different.

I mean, yeah, I made a point.

It's not very different.

It's just a different character of that role.

But you still.

You only need one jester.

Now, I had two best friends that happened to be jesters, and I liked them because, yeah, they were charismatic.

They were funny.

I liked humor.

I liked to laugh.

It is one of the core values that I find precious in people.

Just make me laugh.

You know, let's be funny.

Let's find in each other a source of, You know, calmness or distance.

Let's distance ourselves from reality using humor.

And if someone can do it for me, if I can rift, if I can banter with a jester, that's awesome.

That's really awesome.

Now, I've never been a jester, so there was never a sense of competition or, you know, who is a bigger jester.

I would always be the wingman to jester.

Now, I got tired of this because what happens.

What would happen for me each single time when I interacted with a jester, I would doubt authenticity.

Because for them, everything is a joke.

Just absolutely everything can be a joke.

And they really struggle to be transparent with their emotions.

And even when they are, they will crack a joke eventually, and it's fine.

But if it's.

You know, you can never be really honest and transparent with them.

So I did end up cutting relationships with my friends who happen to be jesters, because I just.

The connection was weakening, and I knew that I cannot really rely on them.

Like, as we get older and we.

We need something more from one another.

I like all I can do with this person just.

We can pretty much just laugh, and maybe we have something that we do, but there is no depth.

There is no meaning.

And meaning is what you need when, you know, when you move on with your life.

And there are challenges and you need more than just laughter, right?

So I decided to kind of silently distance myself from those relationships because they were just not sustainable.

And of course, each time I would end up having a lot of guilt that would maybe result in a feeling of, oh, well, I miss this person.

I'm very sentimental myself, so I would miss moments, I would see some photos, but I know that the person on the photo is not what I think it is.

And even myself, I'm.

I'm a different person than I used to be on the photo.

So it's all just like a blurry, misty, artificial reality, you know, it's all like very science fiction.

Not science fiction, very theoretical, abstract.

Now, recently my former best friend contacted me and it was honestly quite disturbing.

I was disturbed for.

I felt disturbed for a couple of days thinking about this because the way how he approached me was exactly how I consider Jester to behave.

He opened with a crude joke which.

It's not like I'm prudish, it's not like I have a problem with that.

But this is.

He hit me with the essence of what this person possesses, possess.

And it was sad, disappointing.

And you know, my expectations are different.

And I know that interaction with Jester will.

That it's all what it's all ever going to be.

Now what really hurt me is that this friend of mine, he moved on with his life.

He established family, he did a lot of like life altering moves, decisions, and he was never transparent with me about that.

So whenever I found out that he's got a wife, that he's got a kid, a second, a third, I mean, we were not in touch anymore at that point, but.

But still, when things were good, it was just like, hey, wouldn't you tell me, wouldn't I be involved in this now?

I just cannot trust this person.

And it just hurts me that I'm kind of subjected to something like this now.

He suggested that we meet.

It would be nice to meet and have a good time.

I didn't want to refuse.

I didn't want to tell him, look, I don't like the way you speak.

I didn't tell him.

I moved on.

I don't operate like this anymore.

Because the problem that happens to be in this situation is you're becoming, by saying things like that, you're becoming this moral police where, oh, you are the stiff one, right?

You are the adult one.

Oh, look at you.

Like, I don't want to be that because I still like to crack jokes.

I still like, to drift in.

In clouds, like daydream and, you know, to be childish.

But it's a mix.

Like, you need to have all of those components, not just one that dates you back 20 years, you know, you like I.

Anyway, I decided not to confront him.

I replied gently and with, like, clear lack of engagement, but acknowledging.

And it made me.

It left me in a situation where I felt.

Divided whether that was the right thing to do.

Should I be more explicit?

It took me a couple of days to get in terms with the sense of guilt to analyze who this person is.

But also, I've been thinking what kind of people jesters do attract.

And this relationship where, like, I don't know how to qualify myself.

Who am I in this?

If he's a jester or am I?

But there's probably some label I can give myself where, like, I called myself wingman to the jester.

It's kind of like it, you know, I'm the secondary character that feels acknowledged but also dominated by that kind of fake person.

Avar.

So, you know, this experience, it was a callback to my past, but also I was very happy to reflect on how differently I look at relationships, friendships, and how clear this behavior is.

And honestly, I hate jesters at this point.

I don't find them funny.

I don't find them creative, useful.

They are, I think, unstable, emotionally immature individuals that hide behind humor.

And they might be entertaining, but they also silence other people.

They silence other people in the crowd.

They take priority not on merit or value, but purely on jokes and humor and basically pulling people down, you know, like, the other jester that I'm thinking about right now is this guy who would purposely make some remarks that are.

That were borderline rude.

He would point at some vulnerability in a person to make that person kind of contemplate and reflect and maybe feel shame.

That was a big part of it, you know, that this person would feel shame and this person would not speak again because this person would be, you know, immersed in shame, reflecting really bizarre, really sad spectacle.

And like, for me, I would always try to preserve myself some somehow.

I would be like, oh, I will.

I'll be sort of being careful around this guy because he will point out something that will embarrass me and will make me quiet.

That's really a very simple, crude, brutal mechanism that happens.

But, yeah, I have no patience in that anymore.

And I was contemplating how will I react if I encounter jester once again in my life?

And it's very likely, right?

And I think I will react with a lot of unaddressed anger where I will see through this.

And I will honestly say to this person, hey, so this is.

This is what you're doing.

Really?

You really care about being on top of this, this pyramid that only you see?

You want to dominate by making those crude remarks.

To do what?

Okay, I'm not going to say exactly this, but that's.

That's what's kind of going through my mind, through my thoughts right now.

The idea is to.

To expose that I'm onto that person.

The idea is to.

To say, hey, I see through you.

I see what you're doing.

And if you do it publicly in a skillful, confident way, you can really, I believe you can make that jester person to retreat because they are very insecure.

They are very insecure, and the joke is all they have.

They cannot be vulnerable because they.

They're always masked.

You know, jesters always wear makeup.

And if this makeup is highlighted, if I question, well, why do you really wear that makeup?

Because you're hiding.

It's not decoration, is it?

You're hiding something.

What are you hiding?

What's your insecurity?

Why are you doing this, man?

Why are you trying to be funny at all cost?

Making other people feel uncomfortable or offended so you can dominate this space?

You know what I mean?

So, yeah, like, what I said now is a little bit awkward and unrefined, but that's what I want to remember for my next iteration, and it will be very interesting to do that.

I know this day is coming.

It will be some kind of a party.

I hope it's not in the work environment, because then you really cannot do that.

You have a hierarchy of.

Of the office.

You've got chain of commands, and if your manager happens to be a adjuster, well, tough luck.

You better change your party.

You better change.

Change your circle.

Move to the kitchen, maybe, where cool people hang.

Yeah, don't stay around jester.

There's.

It's.

It's a toxic place.

So, yeah, that's really it.

What I wanted to share with you today.

I wonder if you had encounters like that, if you happen to have a friend who is like this.

Or maybe you are a jester.

Maybe you consider yourself to be a funny guy, but in fact, all you do is just.

You're trying to make everyone miserable.

It's a big mystery to.

To me, like, do those people.

Do they.

Do those.

Do they think they're just funny and everyone loves them?

Or, like, are they honest in front of themselves?

I know it's really easy to.

To push some realization, self realizations into the background.

I'm guilty of that.

Sometimes I know I need to think about something and inevitably, inevitably, sorry, I turn some podcast that fills the space that should be filled with self reflection and then I go back and I turn the podcast off and say, no, now it's silence.

It's thinking time.

You know, this multitasking, this need for distraction.

Well, sometimes silence is all you need to reflect on.

On difficult issues, on difficult topics.

Yeah.

That's all I have for you today.

I don't know if it's a lot or not.

Doing a bit of research and reading and thinking about it.

I'm not reading from the script.

It's just really something that I've been processing and thinking and recovering from my memory of last 20 years of those adult, adult interactions.

And I'm really glad with discoveries I've made.

And in the end, I'm grateful that this guy approached me because all of this was just buried in my past and I had no idea.

All right, like I said, I'll leave you with this and I'll speak to you again soon.

You can comment by sending me an email.

I will read your email on the show again.

It's SimonKXmail.com speak to you soon.

Take care.