PSYCHOLOGY BUSKING a la wordswords: EXISTENTIAL DREAD, EXISTENTIAL HEAVEN -- THAT'S ALL WE'VE GOT

BUSKING WITH MY BANJO

Hmmm … EXISTENTIAL DREAD. Existential dread is that stark awareness that I am but a transient being playing my little-bitty part in a lambent light on a precarious stage.
It is not by happenstance that I’m finally at the perfect age to reflect upon my life performance to date. My children are grown and gone; my salary, too, has grown and going, allowing me to behave in the most extraordinarily middle-class fashion; and all while, my silver-wrinkled brain is continually prompting me to channel Peggy Lee in wondering “Is that all there is?”

Yikes.

Could it be that I am suffering from some ACUTE EXISTENTIAL DREAD (AED)? That feeling of such inconsequentiality in relation to my family, my work, never mind in my relation the cosmos?

Oh sure, I’ve fulfilled my evolutionary obligation. I’ve procreated enough to continue the species; I’ve an impeccable work record both in the sweaty blue collar and crisp white collar industries; I’ve studied Astronomy and have read Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History in Time and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.

Or could it be that I am suffering from CHRONIC EXISTENTIAL DREAD (CED)? That feeling created by monotonous stretches of meaningless tedium, a life-to-date of futile melodrama that I realize will end only when I end?

Adding some cliché, there is nothing more boring than watching paint dry. Well moiling for years on pipelines comes close; teaching high school English literature for years, too, comes close.

Or could it be just EXISTENTIAL ANGST? Simply that my life just lacks meaning?

Hmmm. Contrived and certainly delusioned, I’ve managed to imagine meaning in my life, especially with regard to work. (I’ve managed, too, to imagine meaning in my life with regard to family but this blog is NOT about my family. This blog is about ME ME Me and meant NOT to replicate the oftentimes bragging shamefully family members and their antics displayed on Facebook and Instagram and other social media of ilk.) My sweaty blue-collar years were mainly on the road, survey work on pipelines in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and the North West Territories.

As an crispy-collared educator I did manage to escape the confines of high school, teaching Psychology at the University of Regina for 22 years; I did manage, too, escaping from the classroom to design and deliver not just one, not two, not three, not four, but five innovative programs for the public school system, two being specifically related to young offenders. I guess I am stating that I THINK I’ve risen above my bread-and-butter pedestrian teacher status to recognize the intolerable stalemate of middle class misadventures inside and outside the classroom.

Enough EXISTENTIAL DREAD – time for some EXISTENTIAL HEAVEN!

I’ve stated my case for liking my job. Factoid: I click my heels every day I go to work. Saying this, I like my job a lot. Liking my job does not mean loving my job. Another factoid: If I were not being paid to be at my job, I wouldn’t be at my job.

Now to busking. I LOVE BUSKING. Be it busking with my guitar and harp or my sketchpad and pencil, I LOVE BUSKING.

And just what are the reasons I love busking soooo much? Firstly, I need to travel to get to a buskspot. This could be a short-distance municipal busk or it could a long-drive national destination busk or it could even be a fly-across-the-sea busk. Wherever I busk, I have to venture to seek adventure. Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, wrote that “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.” My going busking adheres to both stories. And so I am a Canadian busker channelling Americana folk music while adhering to a Russian notion. Like I said, I love it!

But even with busking there are limits to my love. I would love to be a brutto tempo busker but I don’t like thrumming ‘neath the summer sun between 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock, and for sure I don’t like numb fingers and thumbs from the wintertime winds.

And I must mention hiking. Hiking, too, forces me into going on a journey or being that stranger coming to town. Hiking is heaven. I glean such great joy in the actual hike, being the fresh air and the scenery to breathe breathe breathe in.
And to employ my mixed metaphor, existential heaven: Sipping a beer with my supper in a pub in a faraway village or town after a long day's hike, is truly EXISTENTIAL HEAVEN.

I do label myself an EXISTENTIALIST because I’ve not any faith in any religion (though I referred to heaven only because I'm a Westerner and therefore more familiar with heaven than with other places referenced in other religions and ... being just as important, existential and heaven have that internal rhyme, a great literary device to employ for my snappy title, and snappy titles tend to attract readers); I believe as a human I’ve not a real purpose other than to procreate and continue the species (Evolutionary Psychology I guess); I believe, then, it is very necessary to assign my meanings to my life.

At this point, in the autumn of my life, I’ve assigned busking and hiking to have significant meaning for my existential heaven.

LIFE IS DREADFUL, LIFE IS HEAVENLY …
THE IMBROGLIOS OF LIFE CAN BE FORGOTTEN SIMPLY BY GAZING AT A GIBBOUS MOON --

THAT’S ALL I’VE GOT.

Barking in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week: