AND HERE'S TO YOU FROM JANNE ROBINSON: WE'D LIKE TO HELP YOU LEARN TO HELP YOURSELF

JANNE IN HER HIPPY VAN

JANNE ROBINSON is a feminist non-fiction writer and beat poet who resides on Vancouver Island.

Janne’s theme is authenticity, and so my entry today will be in that same spirit which is ever present in Janne Robinson’s published and publicized life.  To begin, here are a couple of poems that I wrote twenty-some years ago.  The poems are short, but the nuances are long.

This first poem, A Church is …

A Church is

Where beautiful faces marry beautiful faces 

And where the wrinkled ones bury their dead.

You only have to look through the personals and obituaries of the daily newspapers to see my point.  In their pictures, people getting married do look beautiful; whereas, those pictured in their obituaries, though posed at their lively best, present visages that are wrinkled.

My second poem, The Moon in the Afternoon, was written when my oldest boy was about three years of age.  During the summers which I always had holidays because I was a teacher, I’d ride around our city with Baron sitting in the back on his bicycle seat.  Oftentimes we actually saw the moon in the afternoon sky.

The Moon in the Afternoon

The moon in the afternoon belongs to my son,

He looks at it and laughs.

It used to belong to me,

But at night I never laughed.

The suggested theme here is that the poet, in evening sullenness, is abandoned by the moon; the personified moon chooses instead to shine in the afternoon for those who would appreciate it.

I’ll present now some quips from JANNE ROBINSON’s poetry and her keynote speeches, and I’ll offer some personal anecdotes with regard to such.  (Note that these quips from Janne are not quotations, they are just paraphrased snippet I’ve gleaned from her written and oral expressions.)

• I am supported by what I love …

I love guitar busking.  My nidus for this really began when I spent 30 summertime days strumming on the mean streets in Victoria, British Columbia many, many years ago.  Then came didge busking, then portrait busking.  Street hypnosis (though right now I lack the courage) very much seems to be my next busking adventure.

• If it’s heavy let it go …

I love having friends but sometimes you just have to let them go.  I’m referring only to those who anchor me to mundane experiences.  This mundanity has manifested in various ways, boring and monotonous coffee chats only about their work and expressing always their physical aches and pains are just two examples.  I do have a pattern concerning letting friends go.  Once they’re dropped they’re dropped.

• Don’t be known for your suffering …

To live is to suffer is the skinny of Zen but those pains mentioned in the previous paragraph is not really what is being referenced to in the spirit of Zen.  I do not want my perceived theme to be ache-and-pain.  According to B.F. Skinner, if I want to be ache-and-pain old, I just need to behave in that manner.  That would mean being a chronic complainer and having people open doors for me (literally) and accommodate me in other ways, simply because I am acting like an old guy.  Nope.  Acting old is not for me.  I want my theme to be buskology.  

• We are constantly expanding …

Just as our universe is expanding (in a physical sense according to most astronomy camps), so could be we (at least metaphorically).  The longer we live the longer we have opportunity to grow in philosophically, especially existentially.  The longer we linger the more opportunity we have to reflect and introspect upon the contrariness of restriction with regard to unlimited individual choice and individual freedom.  (My Nietzsche is pietzsche but Sartre is smartre blog entry is not soon coming down the Milky Way.)

• Wouldja like more cream in your coffee kind of moment …

I love projecting my alterity as a laid-back busker who sips American coffees all day long, an Americano mein so to speak.  (Note that Americanos to Janne Robinson connote her past as a Canadian representing Corporate America.  Her dislike for this thought makes her physically and psychologically sick.)

• Experiences, not pensions, make you rich …

And speaking about Corporate America, welcome to the middle-class misadventure of company pensions and other banal benefits, escaping from this I’ve discovered my niche to be busking and hypnotherapy -- no pensions allowed.  Sketching street people for free has unwittingly become my unofficial calling.  Surprisingly, my epiphanic moment for this meed originated in Morocco, where just a few months ago I hit the streets of Marrakech with my sketchpad and pencil drew dozens of random strangers who literally stood in line for their pencil-never-lies portraits. 

• Part of being successful is just f@#$kin’ wingin’ it …

True confession:  I am a stager.  I first realized this when I contracted clients through another counseling agency in my home city, Regina, Canada.  Until those initial outside contracts, I had only counseled adolescents.  Counseling under contract, I became the agency go-to couple counselor.  I was successful doing this following my twenty year Choice Theory skills, and adapting them to suit the Solution-Focus Therapy mandated by the agency.  Because I’d been on the counseling stage for a thousand previous client acts, my new role dealing with adults and not adolescents, and presenting a Solution-Focus therapy rather than my usual Choice Theory, my stager status was bona-fide solidified. 

• Fix yourself – Fix the world …

I’m in a constant state of self-fix and flux, but most certainly not in a selfless and universal sense.  Specifically relating to exercise and diet and philosophical and vocational nourishment, in selfish fashion I’m doing pretty good; however, in selfless fashion my actions have been disproportionately stingy.  I love sketching the perceived social street dregs (dregs being a stark social descriptor, my choice of social attitude not my personal belief).  My true worth, unfortunately, comes to weigh-in with you get what you pay for as being one of my favorite phrases.

• Knowing the shit that we hate is as important as knowing the shit that we love …

Yes and yikes!  I do know I have always hated being a career counselor and that concurrently in my career I have always loved being a crisis counselor.  As a worker bee contract counselor, I hate the paper work; the writing up and the filing of the treatment plans because of the subpoenas kicking down the imaginary litigation road in the future.

I hate the packing but I love my buskspots.  Getting to and fro, slinging only my guitar and harp, though traveling light of foot is still a self-imagined heavy burden.  However, as soon as I arrive I thrum and I think and I think and I thrum.  Buskspots are my perfect places for introspection and contemplation.

• We can be the art that we love …

I love being a singer-songwriter and my local gigs are my mercenary proof.  Every year I’m offered four scheduled stage performances, one for each season, at the BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB in Regina.  This, I regard, as a commercial privilege, a social recognition of my busker alterity.  From a narcissistic viewpoint –  
AT LONG LAST I HAVE ARRIVED!

Those marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:  (continuing from Janne’s, “We can be the art that we love … “)

MY NEW SKETCHING STATION AT CENTENNIAL MARKET IN REGINA CANADA

Chrysta, the Centennial Market manager, put this together for me ... and ... she wants to bring my twelve-string and harp to play between sketches!

LILY

LISA

GARY (AGAIN)
Gary is my colleague.  What are the odds that he is an ex-NHL'er and pro European player!
(This is phenomenology at its finest!)

PATSY (AGAIN)
Patsy, too, is my colleague and one of the finest social worker ever!

ANOTHER GARY ... this Gary has been one of my very best friends for over 30 years!

CORBYN AT THE MARKET
Corbyn will very soon be my competition in the portrait sketching department!

DON'T THINK TWICE: IT'S ALRIGHT TO THIN-SLICE

MEGAN (WHOM I'VE JUST MET AND THIN-SLICED)

How many people will you meet in a day, in a year, or in a lifetime?  With how many people are you currently acquainted? Of those acquaintances how many are meaningful and dear to you?

Englishman, Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist has provided some numbers to these questions.  The number of people near and dear to us in our inner circle is from three to five.  The number of people who matter significantly but are just outside our sacred inner circle is 15. The number of people we see regularly, at our workplace and at routine places elsewhere is 50.  The number of people we randomly recognize on the street or in a mall or other haunts is 150.   

The number of people we are connected with on Twitter or Facebook doesn’t count.

Cap-a-pie anyone can judge a person in just one glance.  As shallow as this seems, making such a wide assessment based on such a narrow experience can be remarkably accurate.  In psychology these kinds of assessments are referred to as thin-sliced.

When initially introduced to someone you will likely notice the person’s facial expression first, be it a smile or a frown, bug eyed or bleary eyed.  You’ll notice, too, the person’s body posture, noticeably slouched or stiff or casually relaxed.  Of course there may be the gesture of a handshake, be it firm or fish or fist bump, and then you’ll notice whether the hands hardened and calloused, or soft and shapely. 

No doubt you’ll take note of the person’s garb.  Is he wearing old and worn or madras and mod?  Or maybe this person is nattily attired?  Perhaps this person sports her own signature style.

And last the shoes.  Are they shiny or scruffy?

There is a general attractiveness.  Is this person you are meeting for the very first time presenting as physically fit or fat?  Is this person a mesomorph, an ectomorph, or an endomorph?

Is this person’s hair clean and soft or unkempt and gnarly?  Is the hair coiffured or combed over.

It helps to listen.  Is this person verbose or laconic?  Is this person erudite or a troglodyte?

Saying all of this, when you initially meet someone you never really know who exactly you’re meeting.

In my favorite abecedarian fashion, I’ll offer some types of people you could meet at any given time.  You will meet the aggressive and the aloof, the belligerent and the boring, the cantankerous and the cruel, the deceitful, the domineering, the finicky, the foolhardy, the greedy and the grumpy, and so on.

Or, of course, you will also meet the aged and the adventurous, the bright and the benevolent, the compassionate, the courageous, the diligent, the daring, the empathetic and exuberant, the frank and the friendly, the generous and the gregarious and so on.

Just know that even from those you rebuff, everyone you will ever meet has the potential down the road to be more enhanced than their present condition.

You could be meeting a rock band like the Beatles, who were rejected by 3 different record companies before they signed and became famous.  You could be meeting a future comedian like Jim Carrey, who, on his first stand-up attempt in Toronto at Yuk Yuk’s, was booed off the stage.  You could be meeting a J.K. Rowling, who was on welfare when her book, Harry Potter, after being rejected 12 times, finally came into print.

Maybe you’ll meet a Stephen King, whose first novel, Carrie, was rejected 30 times; or a Walt Disney type, who was fired by his editor for “lacking imagination.”  Or it could be that you’ll meet a Colonel Sanders, who at age 62 and with only $105 in his pocket was pitching his chicken recipes to restaurants.

Remember to not be purblind.  Maybe you’ll meet a future Vincent Van Gogh, who sold only one of his original paintings during his lifetime.  Maybe you’ll meet another Robert Pirsig, whose book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, was rejected 121 times by publishers!

You just never know.  We are all of us savants in some sort of way.

And we all have the ability to thin-slice with authority. Though admittedly sometimes it is difficult to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, you just never really know that person you are meeting.  Next time you meet a new someone, keep in mind your thin-slice could very well be a thick and personal psychological analysis.

As a didge busker I never slice (too busy blowin' in the wind); as a guitar busker I am thin-slicing all of the day (thrumming and chatting and chatting and thrumming); as a portrait busker (an ever intrusive vis-a-vis chit-chat) I tend to thicken the slices.

Most of us are thin-slicing the people we meet.  However, if we are ever soliciting friendship, looking for another to join our inner circle, to thin-slice will not suffice.  But if generally judging betwixt people good and people evil, we don’t need to think twice – 

it’s alright to thin-slice.