Now that’s accentuating the positive…

Once upon a time, comics didn’t make jokes about their own neuroses.  I honestly don’t know how they survived.  [Numerous authoritative accounts point to booze, drugs, and sex as their preferred coping mechanisms.  -ed.]  Luckily, those dark ages are over.   And thus now, not only do comics get a more direct way to channel their deep-seated pain into their art, but also we in the audience get a cheaper source of mental health advice.   For example, I think the following’s pretty good advice:

 I prefer not to think of myself as depressed.  I prefer to think of myself as paralyzed by hope.

–Maria Bamford

 

(For those who were amused by this joke and are tickled by mental health humor generally, note that Maria’s new half-hour special on Comedy Central should be repeating umpteen times over the course of the next month.)