My best friend and I have been going to open mics together for months, supposedly to examine our quarter-life crises through comedy, but we keep chickening out and just watching others perform while making sarcastic comments from the back. We're using irony to avoid actually being vulnerable even though that's what we said we wanted.
More people experience this than they realize.
Their shared cynicism has become a defense mechanism that prevents the very self-examination they claim to seek.
“Where Are You with Stand-up comedy as examined life?”
If this sounds familiar, the Library can help you find the bigger picture.