Why DID she cross the road?

Comedians have a tough job, but not as tough as the dramatist’s. The comedian experiences a significant instance of life, and in their utter fear of its depth, take it to the public square, where the instance is hog-tied and humiliated into nothingness before a crowd of rowdy and lazy-brained spectators. Comedians are the executioners of profundity and the diffusers of serious exploration. They are the purveyors of the eternal now and laughter as a sedative.

The dramatist is a determined interrogator. He or she spends long hours locked up with the significant instance, grilling it, rejecting its confessions, turning it over, slicing its innards, sucking out it’s blood drop by drop like a vampire. The dramatist is allowed to pass beyond superficial realms of the sensual present, through the Gates of Seriousness. In this place of advanced understanding colors are more vivid, words are more carefully chosen, emotions and ideas grow in complex chains, and the seconds of each minute are fuller and more nuanced. The suffering and wisdom of the ages floods the happy-go-lucky cartoon of the present and reveals an entirely new terrain.

OK, I go to extremes. But in adulthood, after our schooling, we are all left with a problem: How to balance our instinctual, infantalized, magical outlook with our probing, rationalized, learned behaviors? Without discipline, we tend to revert back to childhood, to the sensation of an immediate present, to the tonic of laughter, to magic. It's not a crime. But it's very worth recognizing the consequences of this.

(Featherless chicken created by genetics faculty at the Rehovot Agronomy Institute)