The Philosophy of Modern Standup: Lesson 2

Writing jokes begins with writing jokes

Laozi, first philosopher of Chinese Daoism, 6th century BCE

Lesson 2: In order to perform standup comedy, one must first write standup comedy.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
— Laozi, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64

This lesson title might seem like advice so obvious it hardly needs to be said. And yet, many people who get into standup like to try as many shortcuts as possible. For some reason assembling an actual act is the step that they most commonly seem to skip.