TRAVELLING THE JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME: ARE WE THERE YET?

 

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 ...

 

 

WRIGGLED TO WINGED: AN AESOPIAN TALE OF METAMORPHOSIS

 

From my lofty eighth story balcony I am writing about the lowly wriggling caterpillar. Reading other writers, it seems the caterpillar has been looked down upon (from as far up as Heaven apparently) for quite some time.

1 KINGS 8:37

“If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpillar … “

A dear friend, and ofttimes colleague, told me a story about a phone call she received with regard to a giant caterpillar discovered in a back yard in small town Saskatchewan.

If there's something strange
In your neighbourhood
Who you gonna call?

If there's something weird
And it don't look good
Who you gonna call? (Ghostbusters theme song, by Ray Parker Jr.)

Who you gonna call?  THE ENTOMOLOGY FAMILY RACKOW, THAT’S WHO!

The call took place last September, and there was, indeed, something strange and something weird in the neighbourhood.  Something the shape and size and colour of a hot dog was crawling around in a back yard in the town of Pilot Butte.  The ENTOMOLOGY FAMILY RACKOW (mixing the movie metaphors, GHOSTBUSTERS and SPACE FAMILY ROBINSON) rushed to the rescue.  A terrarium filled with six inches of potting soil and a supply of leaves was arranged immediately by the Rackows, becoming the new abode for the newly discovered Achemon Sphinx caterpillar.  The Rackow family aptly and affectionately nicknamed their Achemon Sphinx, LEAF ERICKSON.

 

LEAF ERICKSON. VERY. CLEVER. INDEED. 

About this nickname.  Maybe (for sure, I’m sure) it was inspired by Lief Ericson, the Norse explorer (after all, leaf-eating, Leaf, was found exploring in a back yard).  But his surname, Erickson, hints at other possibilities.  Maybe it was inspired by Erick Erikson, the German-American psychologist (Rebecca, matriarch of the Entomology Family Rackow, has an honours degree in Psychology); or just maybe from Milton Erickson, the famous American, and MY favourite, hypnotherapist.  Hmmm.  Of the three, the spelling of Leaf’s surname matches only that of Milton’s.  Chasing this surname down some psychological rabbit holes whilst mixing metaphors is, I know, really poetaster, but rather fun. 

Whoever his namesake, Leaf was a wriggler caterpillar, and according to his nature, would eventually grow a pair of wings and fly away as a moth.  And Leaf’s story, on a continuum of sorts, is all of our stories.  In our baby beginnings, we are all of us wrigglers.   And as sure as sunrises and sunsets, some of us stay wriggled on the ground, while others of us manage to wax winged for the clouds.

The Rackows were hoping Leaf would metamorphose.  They were hoping to save Leaf’s life so he could eventually crawl out of the dirt, spread his wings, and fly into the sun.  For Leaf and his natural ilk, the sky is the limit.

Today I am writing that such a metamorphosis need not be limited to just creature insects and amphibians.

Metaphorically, metamorphosis can most certainly apply to the behaviours of humans.  And when I try to attach the science of metamorphosis to humans, I am not referring to any majority extrinsically-pressured cultural rites of passage, for example, the expectation of getting a driver’s licence at 16, or going for a beer at a bar upon the age of majority.

I am referring only to those solitary, intrinsically-pressured achievements.  I am referring to examples such as personal fitness and post-secondary academic goals.  (Factoid:  Most people are not physically fit.  Another factoid:  Most people do not achieve a graduate university level of education.)

And now to ME ME ME METAMOPHOSIS ME. To date I have morphed many times in my life.  Close to 70 years of age, my watershed moments are multiple.  (HELLO FRANZ KAFKA!)

My academic wings empirically expanded began flapping immediately following the defence of my Master’s thesis

O’er the waves I was soaring high and in the wind after receiving my swimming instructor/life guard/scuba certification water-world wings.

I was but a bug on my very first buskation thrumming my guitar on the streets of Victoria, British Columbia.  And then after many years of a self-imposed busker internship, I finally transformed into a winged moth who literally flew into Marrakech, and drew over a hundred faces of the merchants on the streets.

I grew; I flew.  I GREW; I FLEW.  I GREW; I FLEW.  

AND YOU CAN TOO.    

ANYONE CAN GROW WINGS AND FLY.

I do not mean to present that intrinsic motivation is the only way to butterfly or moth maker.  Because it's not.  (There is always debate about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation.  Some argue they are different motivations; while others argue that all motivation is essentially intrinsic.  Whatever the case, this is not a blog about that.)  

One can grow or one can stay same ol’ same ol.’ Granted, it’s always easier to stay in the same ol’ haunts and visit the same ol’ ghosts.  A girl I know took her babes in arms and left her drunken husband.  She left their family house in Calgary, Alberta and moved to Regina.  With no income she had to rely on welfare.  She eventually entered the Adult admission program at the University of Regina, got her undergraduate degree, then entered the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  After passing her bar exams she joined a law firm in Toronto, Ontario and the rest is history.  There are lots of stories like this, stories about people falling to rock bottom and with whatever prompts, manage to keep crawling until they grow wings and fly away.

I opened this post with a biblical reference and it seems fitting, too, that I close with one.  The belief in  Christian theology is that the (Felix Culpa) Fall of humans (translated as "blessed" or "fortunate" fall) was necessary for our redemption -- Jesus Christ had to be crucified on the cross to save our souls from Hell.  "Then shall the fall further the flight in me" (from George Herbert's EASTER WINGS).

True confessions:  I am an existentialist.  I am not a person of faith.  But both these biblical references are included only to make my point about the suffering (fall) and the solace (rise) of the human condition.  Suffering makes us stronger.     

TO MORPH OR TO STAGNATE ...

THE CHOICE IS ALWAYS Y/OURS.

Meanwhile back at the Rackow terrarium …

Two days ago I received a picture of Leaf, a beautiful Achemon Sphinx moth with a four-inch wingspan, looking nothing like that wiener wriggler he once was.

And just a moment ago I received this text from Rebecca:

“LEAF ERICKSON HAS FLOWN AWAY!”