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| SELF AT VALUE VILLAGE |
The temperature outside is plus three
degrees with rain showers. This is
another no-busking day, another day of writing about busking and about life. Though, dear reader, I know that for me
busking with my twelve-string and harpoon is life, but for others life has,
just a tad, more meaning.
To be able
to explain our life on Earth is a powerful human need, and this need manifests
itself in our adhesion mainly to two areas:
religion and philosophy, religion being divine and philosophy
being its doppelganger).
Religion is usually regarded as a composed
set of morals, rules, and ethics that serve to guide believers in their
everyday living; whereas Philosophy,
the evil sibling to religion, is a topic tackler, searching for truths and
knowledge and the meaning of life. Religion involves the supernatural and
other superstitions; Philosophy has a
belief only in the natural. Religion has rituals; Philosophy has randomness.
Religion has LEADERS; Philosophy has THINKERS.
To make
sense of our existence, each of us in our addlepated manner, tends to create a
narrative for our own position on the planet, a value of our own life. These narratives, designed to provide
personal harmony in either religion or philosophy, instead often provide a
cognitive and complicated dissonance.
All of our
narratives, I believe, are based upon just a few kindergarten questions:
Who am I?
Where do I come from? Where
am I going? What is the meaning of life?
Though the
questions are kindergarten simple, the answers are complex.
I am a busker;
I am a hypnotherapist; I am a program coordinator; I am a university
instructor.
As a busker
I label myself a social entrepreneur, since most of my local busking take is to
provide pro bono services to the SCHIZOPHRENIA SOCIETY OF SASKATCHEWAN (SSS). In seasons past, I used to pay the sign
whatever the minimum wage. For example,
the minimum wage used to be $10.50 per hour, and so if I busked for one hour,
$10.50 of the proceeds used to be donated to the SSS. These past seasons I’ve designed a different
formula for support. In the busking seasons
of late I’ve planned on scheduling pro bono services for clients referred by
the SCHIZOPHRENIA SOCIETY. For me, this
has been a much simpler calculation and certainly more beneficial to the
consumers.
(I should
mention, too, that I offer my guitar to the SSS in other ways, strumming on
stage for the benefit CHAMPIONS FOR MENTAL HEALTH $75 dollar-a-plate Conexus
Arts Centre fundraiser keynotes, CLARA HUGHES and SHELDON KENNEDY, being just
two examples.)
Who am I on a
grander scale would indicate that I am just one of seven billion beings
presently inhabiting the planet. Such
an answer certainly reduces the importance of my self-aggrandizement of being a
busker with a social conscience. As one
human being inhabiting the planet, I’ve completed my procreation duty of
continuing my species. I have three
children.
I am the son of Jack Child and Marlene Sanders, who split
when I was six years old. I was raised
by my grandparents – my sister was raised by my mom. I knew
my parents; I’ve met their parents; I’ve met most of their siblings; I’ve got
the family re-union-at-funeral photographs to prove it.
Where do I come from on the grander scale is a
search for how humans happen to be walking the face of the Earth. According to the Christian Bible (Christianity
being the most popular religion on the planet), we came from Adam and Eve who
frolicked two (pun intended) much in the Garden of Eden. According to humanist scientist, Loren
Eiseley (The Immense Journey), we
began as all things began – a snout in the ooze of unnoticed swamps, in the
darkness of eclipsed moons, with a strangled gasping for air. According to astronomer, Carl Sagan (Cosmos), the Cosmos is all there is or
ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest
contemplations of the Cosmos stir us – there is tingling in the spine, a catch
in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of
mysteries.
Most of us
fear dying, and yet that is where all of us are going. Only astronauts get off this planet
alive. Do I know where I am going – of
course not! I only know that wherever it
is, I hope to get there before my children do.
Any thought otherwise makes me sad.
Christian
belief dictates that we are going to either Heaven or Hell. We get to pass through the gates of Heaven if
we have been good on Earth, serving our neighbours while spreading the word of
Jesus. We get the wrath of eternal fire
and brimstone if we behave as bad asses.
Scientists
(and some religions) believe that after we die, our personal energy dissipates
elsewhere on the earth, transferring to either to the further development of
floral or fauna.
I’m thinking
Carl Sagan, if he were here for the discussion, could be convinced that when
the sun, our nearest star (93 million miles from here), finally fades (five
billion years from now) into nothingness, we humans, will have been long gone.
This begs
another question: To answer the previous
questions, we rely mostly on faith. Our
scientists have scoured the planet for details and hints, but we are still left
with conjecture framed within religions and philosophies. Since
this is the case, then could we not have arrived on our Earth, from beings in a
faraway galaxy, whose sun, too, happened to burn out?
And this
begets yet another question, one of creation.
I get it that we could have come from a god who can create life. I can create life; I’ve three kids to prove
it. However, most of the gods in most of
the religions have that super ability to grant everlasting life. That power I do not have. That power I do not want. We are
living longer, but will there eventually be a day when we can choose to live
forever?
And the last question:
- What is the meaning of life?
According to
Jaggi Vasudev (Sadhguru), most of us
are searching for solace, security, and fulfillment of our desires, thus our
lives merely being expressions of greed and fear. I’ve heard Sadhguru state that our personal
lives have no meaning, and to think thusly, is pure arrogance. And according to
Sadhguru, to live and operate in the
world, you may have to identify with something.
Play with your identifications – don’t let them rule you.
Existentialists
insist there is no real one meaning to any of this, and to survive positively
in the world, we must be Kapellmeisters, creating our own meanings, attaching
to life our own purposes, and then living our lives accordingly.
Hedonists
believe that pleasure is the only good, and that the pursuit of pleasure is our
only purpose. According to the Christian
bible (Hebrew), sin is pleasure only for a season, the understandings of our
design and existence being liminal, an omniscient god watching over the master
plan.
And what do
I know and believe?
We are all
living in a shadow suite, the mysteries of life being locked up in archetypal
and unconscious thought, all due to our fear and loathing of death. Each of us is delicately choosing to maxixe
upon this blue orb ever spinning through the universe, in the hope of happy
dancing for the rest of our days.
Meanwhile, back at the busking ranch … My best(est) friend asked me if my
guitar and didgeridoo busking was a religion or a philosophy. (Factoid: Her question prompted the idea for
this blog entry.)
I’m thinking
my guitar busking is, indeed, my religion because … I follow a certain ritual
and abide by the same self-prescribed rules on each and every buskspot. So far over the years, this religious
adherence to my self-induced guitar busking rules has served me very well. Genesis
1. In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth and the guitar … need I go on?
And I’m
thinking my didgeridoo busking represents a certain personal philosophy. Slinging a didgeridoo connotes to my
consumers that I’m some kind of Eastern guru – slinging a didge makes me appear
more cerebral than what I really am.
Droning from my didge gives my public the songs of the earth … is there anything more natural than that?
Dear
readers, I know only one thing for certain:
The temperature outside is three
degrees with rain showers. This is
another no-busking day, another day of writing about busking and about life. Though, dear reader, I know that for me
busking with my twelve-string and harpoon is life, but for others life has,
just a tad, more meaning.
Those
marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:
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| TOMMY, JAY, AND SELF ON THE BUSHWAKKER STAGE |
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| DAVE, CHRIS, AND JACK IN THE BUSHWAKKER AUDIENCE |
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| LISA WILLIAMS, MY TWIN, IN THE BUSHWAKKER AUDIENCE |
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| DAN INNES, MIC NIGHT COORDINATOR |
DAN INNES is
the coordinator of the OPEN MIC performances at the SOUTH SASKATCHEWAN
INDEPENDENT LIVING CENTRE (SSILC). Dan
is a gifted rapper who, of course, goes on stage at his own shows.
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| BARON AND SELF (OUR FIRST OPEN MIC!) |
Note the
SSILC sign stage left.
Next OPEN MIC at
the SSILC is NOVEMBER 18TH at 2220 Albert Street, Regina SK.
