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| BUSKING MAY 21ST AT SHOPPERS ON BROAD |
It is in our human nature to be curious. We wonder who we really are; we wonder why we’re really here; we wonder where we’re really going. Having such muses, wittingly or not, we are partaking in one of my favourite philosophical topics -- EXISTENTIALISM!
Perhaps a few quotations from some famous existentialists (and others famous but not for being existentialists) are in order.
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced” (Danish philosopher, SOREN KIERKEGAARD 1813-1855).
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better” (American essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882).
“The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly” (German philosopher, FREIDRICH NIETZCHE 1844-1900).
"Neitzche is peitzche but Sartre is smartre" (Anonymous academic graffiti writer).
“Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal” (French philosopher, JEAN-PAUL SARTRE 1905-1980).
“I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100” (American film director, Woody Allen 1935 - Present).
Existentialists generally believe we are born without purpose into a world that makes no sense. So therefore, for the followers of Existentialism, life has no inherent meaning or purpose. For an existentialist to make any sense of the chaos, the only purpose or meaning in life is that which we create for ourselves. Existentialism is the Carpe Diem ("pluck the day") English literature theme, doing whatever we want and being whoever we want each and every day.
Anything within the realm of our imaginations can be got. Saying this does not imply an outbreak of social declension resulting from our wildest imaginations. Rather than fall, the majority, no matter the culture, always seems to rise and embrace a set of archetypal rules. (Carl Jung believed all things we do are based upon the collective conscious of all humans past and present. He labelled the actions of this collective conscious, archetypes.)
Really. The more I travel the more convinced I am that most humans are hoping just to get along with one another. I am suggesting that the whole human condition is simply a collective cryptography to be deciphered by the self-imposed social norms we have creative for ourselves. And like I said, this is true in all the inhabited parts of our planet. That fringe idiosyncratic population that is not in adherence to these social normative values are considered, in research psychology, to be counter-patterns, necessary and offering an ethical credence to the normative behaviours presented by the citizenry majority on the planet.
Following the lead of Frank Sinatra’s, “I’ve been a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king,” I’ll put this notion of existentialism into pragmatic practice by adding my very own abecedarian harmony, “I’ve been an Academic, a Busker, a Counsellor, a Diver, an Existentialist” …
Fact: I can choose to be an ACADEMIC.
Factoid: I was an academic. I studied enough to attain a Masters Degree in Educational Psychology and from that credential alone, managed to teach third and fourth year Psychology classes at the University of Regina for 22 years.
By my design, for the past four years I’ve not signed a university contract. Even though I loved EVERYTHING about teaching at university, at my age I’ve not enough time left in my life to squander; therefore, have chosen to busk and hypnotize instead of profess.
Fact: I can choose to be a BUSKER.
Factoid: I am a busker. And I’ve been a busker for 15 years. I’ve thrummed guitar and drawn portraits throughout Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Morocco.
Here is what I know about being a professional busker. One has to empirically study the art of busking to be successful. I have come to know the best times and locations. I have come to know my best costume and best instruments.
My acquired insight provokes reflective, yet the simplest of questions. Do I busk with my twelve string and harmonica? Or with my pencil and sketchpad? On the streets of buskerville, singer-songwriter Bobby Dylan wannabee buskers are everywhere; whereas, portrait artists are rare. The perception of an artist on the street drawing portraits is donnish -- the perception of a busker strumming on the streets is idyllic.
Decisions, decisions.
Fact: I can choose to be a COUNSELLOR.
Factoid: After teaching high school English Literature classes for five years I careened into being a high school counsellor. Not-so-strangely, my graduate Psychology classes were not unlike my undergraduate English Literature classes. Both these disciplines have the same themes – the human conditions and the human behaviours thereof. Rising academically from undergraduate to graduate studies, for me was a very easy transition.
Having a proficiency in several counselling methodologies, Choice Theory (Reality Therapy), Solution Focused Theory (Systems Therapy), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (the band wagon methodology that has been the lead float in the therapy parade for the last twenty years), and Hypnotherapy (my favourite and now my only practice). I used to contract my counselling services hither and thither to several agencies, until I decided to set up my own private practice. As stated above, keeping my hypnotherapy practice has given me cause to jettison my university contracts.
Fact: I can choose to be a DIVER.
Factoid: I was a diver. I have always been a good swimmer and during my university years I developed into a great swimmer. Can you believe my minor as an undergraduate was in Swimming? My swimming led to me becoming a diver on two counts. I had been certified in SCUBA at Cariboo College in Kamloops, British Columbia, with the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI), and was also on the University of Regina dive team. With NAUI I was always under water, with the university I was always on a diving board above the water.
For over a decade I was the quintessential and delusional California dreamer, being a diving and swimming instructor for the Regina YMCA.
Fact: I can choose to be an EXISTENTIALIST.
Factoid: To live is to suffer. With me since the hippy 60’s, this is the existential line that I love. Not-so-strangely, this line, too, is the skinny of Zen. Translation: As long as we breathe we have concern. Only when we cease to breathe do we cease to concern. Our concern dissipates with our last breath.
Being an existentialist on the journey of life is much simpler than following a faith. Being an existentialist requires neither a costume nor a prayer; it requires only the accoutrements of breath and behaviour.
Fact: Against all odds (taking the planetary human population into account), the chances of anyone been born into the journey of life are now one in eight billion!
Factoid: As a matter of course, all eight billion of us, the current planetary occupants, are 100% destined to arrive at our journey’s end.
WE’RE NOT THERE YET!
(And I’m in no rush to get there.)
Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:
My friends, NOMAN and ALIYA, newlyweds from PAKISTAN ...
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