- Posts tagged Existentialism
- Explore Existentialism on posterous
"They say sing while you slave and I just get bored..." (I've got my own row to hoe and it ain't gonna be on Maggie's Farm)
When I moved to Australia in 2005, I took time off from work and went back to school to take on a full time MBA program. A lot was learned, but one of the courses I took had deep impact on me that made a fundamental change in my thinking: "Foundations of Management Thought". Forget about all the management and business bullshit for a minute. The gist of this course was about exploring centuries of philosophical theories and applying them to management practises (Blah, blah, blah...).
I was the only American in a group of twenty-two. American schooling is not like European or Eastern when it comes to learning about different world philosophies. The emphasis is just not there. It was never more evident to me until I took this course. Pretty much everyone else in the group had a much deeper knowledge of the philosophies we discussed, debated and challenged over the twelve week course.
The course itself was extremely well done. The link to the "management" was strong and well thought out. I wasn't all too concerned about how I could apply it to business as much as I was trying to grasp how this was effecting me personally. One of the philosophies we focused on was existentialism. This one grabbed me by the balls and hasn't let go since.
I wouldn't even think about trying to get into all of the different perspectives on existentialism from the different philosophers here and now. Shit, I still don't understand them all. That being said, I have done a lot of reading on the subject. My process for exploring this subject is this: read...read and learn as much as you can...you don't have to understand it all...instead, pull out the bits that are relevant to you and apply them to your process. That is what I do.
Existentialism, for me, boils down to this: live in the present, make choices and own the responsibility of the consequences (good or bad). Use the facticity of your life, combined with your personal values, to make these decisions and, if you act in good faith, enjoy the freedom that comes with being an individual. OK, that's enough of that here in this format. I love to talk about this stuff...but, it is best done over a few-four bottles of red, some good music and willing participants.
Back in 2007 when I was living in Sydney, Australia, I did a lot of reading about this subject. One of my fave things to do is to go to pubs, have a few beers and read. I find it to be so relaxing. Reading is a very solitary action, but it doesn't have to be a lonely one. I love the idea of sitting in a busy pub and being a character in the scene and reading: social and solitary in one go.
I take a lot of notes when I read. During my exploration into existentialism, I spent many a Saturday in pubs reading, leaning, building monuments, jotting down notes and putting back pints of my fave Aussie beer. I was reviewing those notes today. I thought I would share them here. These are the bits that mattered most to me at the time of my reading and research. Have a sift through them and find any nuggets that interest you...be they fool's gold or real deal Klondike truth.
If you have any thoughts, ideas or sparks you want to strike...leave them in the comment section below. In the last page, you can see the germ of something that I have been thinking about for a while: the "American Dream" and how Thomas Jefferson and Hunter S. Thompson are joined at this hip on this.
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Another aspect of "Juddlosophy" that is part of The 6149 is...the Individual or the Original. This subject itself is an entirely different post for a different day, but I'd like to touch on a few key things relative to what this blog is about. In the sidebar, I describe The 6149 to be about "making choices, being curious and challenging conventions (oh yeah...and a whole lotta music, too)". The title to this blog itself is a play on "choice". I am a blues man. I love the blues because of the music, but also because of the stories and legends that live within the music. There is no legend (whether you consider it timeless or worthless) more identified with the Blues than the legend of the Crossroads. The Crossroads: choice personified.
Here are three people who have helped me sing the song of The 6149: Neil Young, Hunter S. Thompson and Bob Dylan.
Have a look at the subtitle to this blog. It reads: 'I've got my own row to hoe". That is adapted from a line in a fave Neil Young song, "Thrasher". In the sidebar there are two quotes: one by Hunter S. Thompson and one by Bob Dylan. These two quotes, plus the line from the Neil song, mean the world to me:
"Got my own row left to hoe" - "Thrasher", Neil Young (full lyrics)
“To see life clearly, to live it like a champion, you have to develop your own set of rules.”- Hunter S. Thompson
“I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more...” - "Maggie's Farm", Bob Dylan (full lyrics)
I think about these three lines every morning when I pull my bones out of bed. I also think about the list of people on the "Honour Roll" (found in the sidebar to the right). These are the people that I admire most and who have made an impact on my life.
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Neil Young...he is my hero. The ultimate individual. "Thrasher" is one of my fave Neil Songs. When I hear it, I want to break molds and blaze trails.
In 2007, Hunter's window put out a book called, The Gonzo Way. This book is about Hunter's "wisdom". Have a read of a previous post about my thoughts on this book and how I came to make this video (below) and the reach it had (I got a tip of the hat from Hunter's widow for this on her blog and from the publishing company put it on their website to promote the book).
Maggie's Farm: have you ever really listened to the lyrics? Yes? Ok, then...you know where I am coming from. No...well then, listen again...(waiting)...Ok, you got it now? Excellent. Listen here to Maggie's Farm played by Bob and his "electric band" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The impact of the song and scene it was played cannot be understated.
Welcome to My Life Tattoo Part II: Final Ink...for now
(Click here for Part I of "Welcome to My Life Tattoo". And, since I published the these pics in this post, the tattoo has completely healed. Go to this post for the real-deal healed pics)
Whew. Five and a half hours of tattooing. By hour number four I was singing to myself, "have mercy, have mercy on me...", a line from the Don Covay tune, "Mercy Mercy" (I was actually singing The Stone's version off of "Out of Our Heads").
That is a lot of time to be under the needle...without stopping! I wanted to finish the job in one go no matter how long it took. The guy responsible for inflicting the pain and the great ink work is Heath Nock (check this out for some of his photos). Heath works at Steel Lotus in Sydney. If you are looking for a top notch, passionate-about-what-he-does ink slinger, go see Heath.
Heath and I met a month or so before this inking session took place. I was actually supposed to have the work done at that session, but we both didn't feel great about where the design was at. Good lesson here...if you aren't sure don't do it. Instead of tattooing we talked about the design for an hour or so. Heath drew some designs on my arm until we got the right feel for what we wanted, how big it needed to be and if it would compliment the great work he had already done on the outside of my arm.
I left feeling really good about the design. When I showed up four weeks later, Heath had the stencils ready to go. One was the Highway 61 and Highway 49 road signs. Another was of the gramophone. That was Heath's idea and he was spot on with that one. The final one was the old 45 RPM record spindle. Each one was really a separate tattoo that we would weave together with a little shading and fill magic.
The designs...what are they all about?
The Highway 61 and Highway 49 signs were the mandatories. I'm not so dedicated to this blog that I needed to get a tattoo about it. It is the other way around. I love music, the blues especially. I've waxed on many times about how it is not just the music I love, but the stories and the characters and the folklore, etc. that really gets me. The signs are a part of all of that...the crossroads, the Mississippi Delta, the well traveled road on the way up to Chicago...I love the symbolism.
The signs, as they relate to the "crossroads" also represent "choice" to me. From an existential bent...we make choices and we need to own the responsibility that goes with them. I am "deep-end" believer of this and the signs represent that for me as well.
The phonograph turned out great. It still has a bit of healing to do, but I love it. I like old time-y music. Gramophones harken way back when to when my favorite music first started to get recorded. If I could have got a Charley Patton tune written on the label I would have ("High Sheriff Blues" would have been my choice)
The record spindle was just something I wanted there. It too is an ancient piece of record playing history.
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I'm very happy about the ink work. I love the whole thing. If you are going to get a tattoo...small or massive...you have to make sure it means something to you and that you are going to like it. Make sure you find someone who does great work and that you are comfortable with. Protect your investment as well. I make sure I drench my arm in 50 proof sun block when ever I go out.
I think I am done. At least for the foreseeable future. I have a few other ideas, but I will wait until the time is right. Plus, I'm still feeling that five and half hour job. Youch...
(still a bit of healing to go, but all is going well...)
- Posted from Darlinghurst, Australia
Johnny Cash is a friend of mine...
I remember how gut-wrenching it was the day the Johnny Cash died. I felt like I lost an old and true friend. I can't say I ever met him, but I feel like I knew him well. If you listened to what he had to say in the stories he sang and the tales that he told, you could find out anything you wanted to about the man. Famously, he walked the line, but he also walked the talk.
If you look at the arc of his career it matches the arc of his life. He created music not to sell records, but to tell his story. Every phase, every cause and every up and down has been turned into song and shared with all who care to listen and to all who can't help but listen. I am definitely one of the latter, but am more so someone who actually cares about listening. Johnny is an inspiration to me for many reasons. First and foremost he was his own man, a self-made man, and it was by his terms that he acted out his life. If you are looking for a character in history that typified the folklore of the American way or American figure...it was Johnny; they need to make more room on Mount Rushmore. He grew up on a small farm in Arkansas, experienced great tragedy and poverty as a child, had a dream that he stood by, through deep valleys and towering peaks, to turning into a reality which he ultimately achieved. He went on to become of the most recognised figures in the world. Through all of this he never lost sight of who he was and how he came to be. He was desperate early in his career, ravaged by drugs and stoked by fame. He was saved by love and saved through his faith. He always reached out to people and reached down to help his fellow man up. We can learn a lot from Johnny Cash...he was honest which means that he wore his flaws on his chest like medals for all to see and learn from just as much as he wore his heart on his sleeve. Just a few minutes ago, I was listening to a bootleg of a show he did in 1994. This was right around the time that he experienced a rebirth (yet again) of his career through the involvement of producer Rick Rubin. At the time right before Rubin entered the scene, Johnny was trying to just be himself, but no one was listening. Record companies wanted gimmicks, but Johnny just wanted to play what was on his mind...as he always did. Rubin sought out Johnny and said, I want to record you...on your terms. It was a historical pairing. The results were five defining albums that were as rich as the Arkansas soil that Johnny tilled many years earlier. This bootleg struck me because of the voice Johnny sang in. It was a knowing voice, a voice you felt compelled to listen to and believe every word it sang. You trusted it...unequivocally. This was 1994 and Johnny had been singing for a long time. The voice was not tired and old, nor was it outdated...it was "outlasted". He had experienced so much, but was still not finished and that is what he voice sounded like: a man with a rich and deep history who was still cutting paths and who still had at least three steps on the setting sun. A stone cold cool story for you. In 1998, Johnny Cash won a grammy for Country Album of the year. The irony was not lost on Johnny or Rick Rubin. The same industry that said Johny was washed up a few years earlier, rewarded him with it's highest honour. Just after this, Johnny and Rubin's record label (aptly titled, "American Recordings") took out a full page ad Billboard magazine. The ad was the famous 1970 picture of Johny with a full on and furious middle finger sticking up, defiantly. In the upper of the ad, the copy read: "American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support." Johnny Cash...on his own terms.Here is the ad:
(this is the actual bumper sticker)
So, here it is, my tribute to Johnny Cash, written a few years after his death: The Man in Black He walked with kings and never lost the common touch. He knew not a distance between preacher and follower. He could speak to many different people and he could speak for many different people. While he walked this Earth he spoke and we listened. And though he has passed on, his words still ring true; immortal. Johnny Cash was one of us. He was one of us…but he was also something more than what we could ever collectively be. This everyman spoke words we could not communicate and articulated feelings we could not express. Johnny Cash was special and I am proud to say that I lived in his time. Johnny Cash never forgot where he came from; he never forgot that everyone else came from somewhere too. He invited everyone and anyone to live within the stories that he told through song. Johnny Cash walked the line for love, he walked the line for his faith and he walked the line for all of us who were unable to do so. Do we not all seek to be inspired? Let me share with you my inspiration…Johnny Cash. His is an influence…empowering-unavoidable…in that once you experience it, it stays with you.
My first impression of Johnny Cash…musician…country musician, hillbilly, outlaw. My taste for country music back then was sour…that is, if I had a taste for it at all. Once, while driving the highway that connects America’s east coast to west, Cash joined me for the ride. As I fumbled to find a clear station on the radio, I heard the voice. It was proud, confident and it was speaking; to me. For the first time I listened. I listened to Johnny’s message and within it…I heard the voices of the people he sang for. Known as the man in black, Cash wore the protest. “I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless hungry side of town” Cash knew where they came from. He knew of those cast aside as “has beens” and “have nots”…and he was not idle in his protest. He tells us… “Just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought ta be a Man In Black” His message got through to me...powerful and authentic. I understood then, as I do now, that Cash, Johnny, was on our side. Johnny Cash was a singular individual in American history; the timbre of his character echoes throughout. While Johnny personified country music, he will be remembered as a musician that transcended genre. In his body of work he will leave a legacy for all to emulate, inhabit and aspire to. Johnny Cash’s life was a constant struggle between virtue and vice. In the same voice he used to sing for the people, he sang of God and of murder; to do otherwise…would have compromised his integrity. He carried and angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. It was this that allowed access to him as a flawed but honest man. Johnny Cash never went through the motions. He believed in his faith, he believed in his music and he believed in his message. Some people call Johnny Cash a legend; I just call him friend.
Losing my sense of boundary...
"No method, no guru, no teacher" - Van Morrison
"You don't need no gypsy to tell you why" - Gregg Allman "I just believe...in me" - John Lennon_____I want to lose my sense of boundary. I do not want to live in a linear fashion any more. The shit has definitely hit the existential fan for me. The linear track that has been laid or for us/me...teens, twenties, thirties...weeks, months, years...you must, you do, you've done...I don't like it. This linear thing is all about getting somewhere before you end up dying. This is what we are supposed to do; I am not and have never been a fan of "supposed to". I don't want to live my life like that any more. What I aim to do is to create my own personal meaning/existence in contrast to this general theory. That being said, I have failed to act on this having not yet made the full-on commitment to do so. Why not? Really, there is no honest reason why except that I haven't made the choice to do so. This is where some turn pro and some turn tail and run and hide...making choices. Through our choices we become who we are. The biggest choice I need to make today is to choose that I will break from this linear track and act on my theory/authentic view on how I should be living my life. In this case, I'm looking for a crutch, a spark to push me to make this choice (this is not a good thing per se, but I need to start somewhere). So, today I am going to attempt to rewire my circuits in a sensory deprivation tank. (If you want to know much more about the sensory deprivation tanks, check this out)A sensory deprivation tank is a light-less, soundproof tank in which subjects float in salty water at skin temperature. Epsom salt is added to the water in the tank to raise the density of the water above the density of the human body, so that you float with your face above the water. The ears are submerged so that hearing is greatly reduced. When the arms float to the side, skin sensation is greatly reduced because the air and water are the same temperature as the skin, and the feeling of a body boundary fades.The idea is that you reach a severe state of relaxation after about twenty minutes and then then the theta brainwaves start to take over. Theta brainwaves are found in the brain state of REM sleep (dreams), hypnosis, lucid dreaming, and the barely conscious state just before sleeping. This range of brainwaves has been associated with reports of relaxed, meditative, and creative states. You retain consciousness but access subconscious thoughts. I know this is not a magic tank where I will emerge an all-knowing, all-seeing being. The reason I am doing it is, a) I am curious about it and what it is like and, b) I do want to start to filter out a lot of the clutter in my thought process and I think this might be a starting point to doing it on an ongoing basis. My expectations are that I will have the opportunity to put everything on pause and start to find the focus perspective necessary to make the right choices in order to live the existence that I want. "Existence that I want". What is it that I mean by that? A linear life...for me...is a life lived on a timeline where too much dependence on my past limits my current choices, thus implicating my future. I am trying to live a non-linear life where I sit in the centre of my existence and all of my experiences, values, influences hover around me. At any time I can theoretically pluck them out and use them to make the right choices that lead me in the right direction. This way my choices are not contingent on a past that dictates "what I am to do next". Ultimately I want my choices to be made based on the opportunities at hand and where they could lead me and not on the requirements of the situation that forces me to make a decision (not necessarily the right one).
_____My choices are something (the only thing?) I can can actually control. If I am "born here and will die here against my will" as Dylan puts it, in between that space, I alone alone can create an existence that I aspire to have (and I have lofty personal goals) through making choices (that I will be solely responsible for) based on personal values and experiences, and not, necessarily, timelines. On to the tank...p.s. about three years ago I wrote an essay that touched on existential themes. Looking back it was a good if not naive effort to start to form a personal philosophy something I was/am interested in: choices>responsibility>freedom. Have a read if you are interested: (download)
The Gonzo Way: Tribute to Hunter S. Thompson (video)
"Never try and be like anyone else". - HST
Good advice, Hunter. Hunter knew how to walk the talk, too. In a long history full of pioneers and trailblazer, Hunter was one of America's best. He was uncompromising in methods and unquestionably patriotic. HST is a heavy influence in my life and not for all the reason that you may think. There is another angle to Hunter that the masses do not know about nor have bothered to investigate. His widow, Anita Thompson, put together book in the months after his death called, "The Gonzo Way". It is a tribute of sorts to the man that Hunter was and the wisdom that Anita and those around him soaked up. His wisdom. as I see it, reflects a very existential existence. It is up to you as to who you are and who you project yourself to be. Your choice...your responsibility...(and as a result) your freedom to live the life you want to on your own terms. One of the bits of wisdom that I pulled out of the book was a quote by Hunter: “To see life clearly, to live it like a champion, not taking abuse from anyone, you have to develop your own set of rules.” There was so much more to Hunter than Fear & Loathing and that is why I appreciate Anita's book so much. Around the time it came out, I got a new Apple Macbook Pro and I was giving all the bells and whistles a test run. I was using the Apple version of powerpoint ("Keynote") and I created a presentation the Gonzo Way as I saw the book. I used the upload to YouTube feature and whala...I posted my vid online. Through the power of the interweb, the wisdom spread. Within a couple of days I had over 1,000 views (almost 7k now), a few emails and even a mention from Anita on her "Owl Farm Blog" (see it here). Very cool. I even exchanged a an email with her on the video & book. I hit the nerve center. Righteous. The book puts forth the Seven Lessons:- One: Learning – That’s What it’s All About
- Two: It’s Wrong When it Stops Being Fun
- Three: Politics is the Art of Controlling Your Environment
- Four: “We” is the Most Important Word in Politics
- Five: Truth is Easier
- Six: Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride
- Seven: Never Apologize, Never Explain
Have a watch of the vid and learn a bit more about the lessons and to soak up some of the wisdom youself. Also, enjoy the Bob soundtrack (Mr. Tambourine Man was a front-row song for HST).
If you want a closer look a the presentation, I attached the PDF of it. (download)
Mahalo.
