I GOTTA BE ME: BUT WHO AM I?

SELF-PORTRAIT

According to both William Glasser, author of REALITY THERAPY and Yuval Noah Harari, author of 21 SOLUTIONS FOR THE 21^ST CENTURY, we humans think in stories.  Glasser insisted that everybody has a story to tell, and Harari insists we live according to the stories to which we continually attach ourselves.  Well it just so happens that I’ve lots of stories to tell; however, today I shall limit these stories to those having themes to provide for the reader (and myself) just who I am, or rather, who I think I am.

Who am I?  Hmmm … as long as I keep identifying with the constant streams of thoughts and self-characters that keep popping into my head, I think I know exactly who I am (at least at any given time).

Factoid:  I am a self-aggrandizing aggregate and I’ll attempt, in this blog entry, to explain why.

Who am I? I am a writer. 

I am a published author (A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY, Toronto University Press, 1985).  Hmmm … but that was long ago.  Right now as I type the second and third drafts of this blog; after which I’ve three more of my original stories to scratch off my to-do list:  THE CREEK (an adolescent science fiction novella once published several years ago but now am thinking of publishing online), SCHIZOPHRENIA: THE SHADOW SUITE (an autobiography searching for a publisher, including of course, a publisher online), THE CROSSING (a rather racy vampire novel to be revised just one last time before sending somewhere), and NEIL’S MNEMONIC DICTIONARY (a dictionary of a thousand words and associations to remember those words, and too, to be revised yet again before searching for a publisher).

THE CREEK (BOOK COVER)

 

Being a writer is a very solitary and often times lonely occupation.  As an undergraduate English Literature major I fancied myself a poet.  As a poet I wrote at least a hundred poems and with great effort and disappointment managed to get none of them published.  In later years, as in “now” years, I’ve opportunity to somewhat redeem my bard self by being a locally recognized singer-songwriter balladeer on street corners and bar stages.

As a young high school English teacher, I would get published every now and then in certain magazines with topics related only to scuba diving and skiing.  Magazine articles on these two topics had to be physically experienced before putting pen to paper.  Such adventures are always fun, but writing about them not so much.  I liken it to one of my favourite sayings, “I used to love hiking until I joined the army.” 

As a writer I have this blog, PSYCHOLOGY BUSKING A LA WORDSWORDS, and have a work website, NEIL CHILD HYPNOTHERAPY, for my private counselling practice.  For my blog I used to regularly write one entry per week, then as I got busier with my private practice I have submitted an entry only about once a month.  As for my hypnotherapy website, I do revise it now and then (more “then” than “now” though).

Who am I?  I am a guitar busker.  

Yesterday I stood and strummed and blew my harp for an hour in front of the main door at Value Village.  Typically, when I guitar busk I do so for approximately an hour and a half and no longer than that at any particular buskspot.  If the day happens to be sunny and the consumers munificent, after the hour and a half I’ll pack up and mosey on to another buskspot and thrum and harp for another hour and a half.

A COLD DAY BUSKING

 

When I busk with my guitar and harp I fancy myself as a Bobby Dylan wannabe.  Cap-a-pie I present with messy hair, a pair of shades, a white t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and always wear my hiking boots.  I thrum either my Seagull 12 string or my Gold Tone banjitar, and always in concert with my usually C or sometime G or Am harmonica.Who am I? I am a portrait busker.

On sunny and windless days, I love to draw people’s portraits on the street.  Such portraits take no longer than fifteen minutes and I charge ten dollars for each.  Packing a sketchpad and pencil is much simpler and considerably more portable than packing a guitar.  A portrait busker I’ve decided, is considered to be occupying higher strata than that of a guitar busker.  It’s a simple optic.  Guitar buskers are a dime dozen whereas street portrait artists are rare revered.

FANNIE (OUR FAVOURITE DREAM BROKER)

 

TANYA'S LAST DAY AT THE YMCA

Sometimes (often times) a guitar busker is likened to a beggar with a guitar; whereas, a portrait busker is admired to simply being studio artist taking his ware to the street.

As a busker I am somewhat, or rather quite a lot, delusional.  I’ve always imagined buskers as being that western stranger-rides-into-town romance and adventure aura.  I have busked with my guitar and pencil throughout Western Canada, in the Netherlands, in Ireland, and Morocco.  I fancy myself as a planetary busker and delusional in this regard.  As a planetary busker I am an artisan filled with wanderlust, unfettered and ever on the move.  My reality is that I’ve obligations, both social and financial at home in Canada.  Packing and exiting my present situation would require much more than a guitar load of gumption.

Who am I?  I am a hypnotherapist. 

In my past I’ve been a Reality therapist, a Solution-focused therapist, a Cognitive Behaviour therapist, and sadly, an Eclectic therapist.  Now my private practice I’ve restricted myself to being only a hypnotherapist.  I LOVE BEING A HYPNOTHERAPIST.

SITTING AT MY COLLEAGUE'S DESK

 

Most of my clients are catalogued into one of three big bread-and-butter issues:  Quitting smoking, losing weight, getting a good night sleep.  This was especially true at the beginning of my practice.  Now fear of public speaking, fear of flying, and fear of bugs are commonplace; as our sexual and relationship dysfunctions are, too, very commonplace.  Not as common but consistent, I’ve been counselling clients through memory recalls and even past lives regression.  (Being ever braggadocio my best successes to date are those quitting smoking, those recalling childhood memories, and most recently, those wanting to regress to a past life!)

I’m likening hypnotherapy to that same optical strata as the portrait busker.  Therapist, like guitar players, are a dime a dozen; whereas, hypnotherapists, like portrait artists, connote a much rarer talent and intellect in the mind’s eye of the beholders, so to speak.  (I shall qualify this right away.  The dime-a-dozen metaphor is not necessarily appropriate. Guitar buskers are really a dollar a dozen – therapists are really a hundred dollars a dozen.)

Who am I?  I am a fitness freak. 

My freakiness has natatorial beginnings.  In the 70’s I was a swimmer (I was a swimming and diving instructor for over ten years).

And then in the 80’s I became a serious long-distance runner (I even wrote my Master’s thesis in Psychology on running).  In the 90’s, especially, I became a weight lifter (my Master’s thesis, too, included a snippet on exercising with free weights).  At the turn of the century I began training as a martial artist (first Kenpo Karate, then Taoist Tai Chi, and for the last fourteen years, Bang Muay Thai.)

TRAINING AT ASCENDANT MMA GYM

 

“Training as a martial artist” is misleading.  I train not for fighting but for fighting techniques. I simply love the technique of fighting – I hate the actuality of fighting. For example, in Muay Thai  sparring sessions I choose always not to participate.

Keeping fit, I hike lots.  Like busking, I have hiked the Canadian Rockies, the French Alps, the Irish Gap, and the Moroccan Atlas Mountains.

HIKING IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES

 

Who am I?  Hmmm … as long as I keep identifying with the constant streams of thoughts and self-characters that keep popping into my head, I think I know exactly who I am (at least at any given time).

Who am I?

WRITER. HYPNOTHERAPIST. BUSKER. MARTIAL ARTIST. HIKER. 

ME ME ME ME ME … I GOTTA BE ME … 

I GOTTA BE A SELF-AGGRANDIZING AGGREGATE COMPRISED OF SEEMINGLY DISPARATE HOBBYHORSES WHICH ARE ALL QUINTESSENTIAL TO MY VERY BEING.

 

 And now ... Who are you?

WHOEVER YOU THINK YOU ARE ... 

I AM SURE YOU ARE AS DISPARATE AS I ...