thekenshow's blog

(I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Part III)

Paradox with him was only truth standing on its head to attract attention.

– Unknown

One exclusive characteristic of the mammal class prior to 1798 was giving birth to live young instead of laying eggs. Around the turn of the 18th century, Europeans encountered for the first time what would come to be known as the platypus. As Robert Pirsig points out in his book, Lila, naturalists at the time believed it to be a hoax. When its existence was ultimately proven, they grudgingly moved it from the category of fraud to paradox.

What confounded the naturalists was that the platypus had the defining attributes of a mammal – warm blood, vertebrae, hair, neocortex – but it laid eggs. It was the mammal that couldn't be. When theory and reality come into conflict, the shrewd observer bets on reality. She would unfortunately lose in this case because the theory (mammal is a valid class of animal) triumphed and the poor platypus was designated mammal with a liberal sprinkling of disclaimers like “bizarre”, “only” and “unknown”.

Today, 210 years after its discovery and despite a growing list of contrary data (it has ten sex chromosomes, most other mammals have two; it shares chromosome genes with birds; it lacks the mammalian sex-determining gene), we continue to stubbornly maintain that the mammal class is faultless and the platypus, ipso facto, is wrong.

This is a perfect example of the way thought and knowledge can prevent us from apprehending what is right before our eyes. We can become so invested in our concepts and classifications that we declare reality broken when it fails to measure up to our story. It’s been said that certainty divides and uncertainty unites; I’m sure the platypus would agree.

Tomorrow: All the Colours

(I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Part II)

The follower of knowledge
learns as much as he can every day;
The follower of the Way
forgets as much as he can every day.

I don’t recall where I initially stumbled across the Tao Te Ching. It was probably quoted in something else I was reading as a teenager. Like most, I had by then spent years institutionalized, arduously trying to climb the tree of knowledge. The Tao was my first encounter with the hard nut of contradiction and I was mildly exasperated and strangely intoxicated by it.

We learn about letters, words, sentences, grammar, paragraphs and essays; about numbers, addition, subtraction, geometry, algebra and calculus. We learn about physics and physiology and languages and logic. Contradiction and paradox, unfortunately, don’t have much of a toehold in the curriculum. When we crash headlong into a statement like, “The sage desires no-desire, values no-value, learns no-learning”, one part of us flatly rejects it while another notes the subtle redolence of a blooming truth.

This fragrance is usually overpowered by other, more pungent smells and quickly forgotten. We settle into an agreeable sort of harmony in a walled city of accepted knowledge, and years elide into decades. Eventually, perhaps in the face of great tragedy or a gnawing sense of mortality, we remember that fleeting awareness. We look at the walls surrounding us and wonder: is there more?

Tomorrow: Honey Lips

(I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Part I)

I have spoke with the tongues of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone

I have to admit I find the pitched battle raging between the atheists and the religious fairly entertaining. When I went looking for the lyric to my chanson de motif this week, I was momentarily confused when I found it nestled beside an ad for The God Who Wasn’t There . Many U2 songs do have a spiritual thread, of course, some overtly reflecting Bono’s Irish Catholic upbringing. I suppose the banner ad software was on to something when it calculated that the movie and the U2 tune were natural bedfellows.

Getting back to the amusing side, if you think about the opposing ends of the atheism/religion argument, it boils down to two propositions:

• Atheism: We will know everything we don’t already know, and we already know that.
• Religion: There is more than can possibly be known, and we know exactly what it is.

We’re offered these purportedly conflicting views as blueprints for living, ways of working out this human condition. I say “purportedly” because they actually share a common foundation: knowing. Both assume we know a) where we are, and b) where we’re going. Everything else? A sideshow of details to fill in as we go along, like birders ticking off the species on a list. When you’re certain about where you are and where you’re headed, there’s not a lot of room for creativity.

(Things Behind the Sun, Part V)

Truth lies within ourselves: it takes no rise from outward things, whatever you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness and to Know rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape than in effecting entry for light supposed to be without.

Shortly after I started writing songs, a friend and I attended a “Date with a Demo” event put on by the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC). It used to called “Date with a Tape”, probably until someone noticed how much that sounded like “Date with a Victrola”. At these sessions, songwriters bring a recorded original tune for a panel of professionals to review. The song is played to the end of the first chorus for all to hear and then the pros, who have the complete lyric, weigh in.

Candour is the name of the game and it can be a humbling experience for a budding songwriter. The night we went, there were maybe thirty of us attending and the panel was made up of a couple major label types and the terrific singer-songwriter Ian Thomas.

One by one, songs were demoed and then critiqued: needs a hook, chorus doesn’t pay off, the narrative is vague, not sure who you’re singing to, not concrete enough, this verse contradicts the last, needs a bridge, and so on. The tone was compassionate but honest and there was squirming in the seats as demos came and went with nary a positive remark. About this time, I was thinking about what a dumb idea it had been to come, dreading exactly how they would shred my song, and erecting my rationalizing defensive walls. Hey, I didn’t really want to write songs anyway!

When my turn finally came, I was stunned to hear comments like “classic Canadian folk song”, “should be an artist demo” and “evocative”. Finally, Thomas said if I had more like this (I didn’t, at the time) then I should record an album*. My mouth felt like sawdust and my heart was hammering so madly I expected it to punch a whole in my chest and land on the linoleum, still beating.

I learned a lot that night and not just about songwriting. I learned it’s vital to bring your truth to the world, that no matter what the response, you must unveil what lays deeply hidden. Anything less and you’re holding back, offering less than all you have to give. Succumb to that and one day you’ll look back on the ephemeral dream of your life and wonder what you were waiting for.

PS. My friend brought a second song of mine and the panel made mincemeat of it. It was a magnificent night.

* Thomas also pointed out that, with folk icons like Cockburn and McLaughlin having trouble selling, nobody would buy that album. But that was no reason not to make it.

(Things Behind the Sun, Part IV)

If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

Relationship is one of the reasons coaching can be so effective. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) has a list of 11 core competencies for a coach, and #4 is establishing trust and intimacy with the client. In describing this competency, they state that the coach “champions new behaviours and actions, including those involving risk taking and fear of failure.” (Emphasis and Canadian spelling mine ;-).

We’re inclined to turn back at the threshold of significant change when there’s no social support for it. It’s tricky to believe we can succeed and to make the necessary commitment without encouragement. In a sense, it’s unrealistic to expect a universal cheering section in our current network of family, friends and society. If everyone rallies behind your new direction, ask yourself whether it’s really new.

A coach expands the options of your social system by advocating new behaviours and actions. Possibilities are reflected back to you, not only brick walls. A little soil appears where there was only rock. Hope and belief are like water – it doesn’t take a lot, just a steady trickle over time can wear down seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Tomorrow: Open Wide the Hymns you Hide

(Things Behind the Sun, Part III)

No road is long with good company.

Bruce Cockburn once sang that “every psychopath gets his own magazine these days.” That was before the Net blew into town – now they have blogs and MySpace pages. On the plus side, every everybody has their own these days, and therein lies one way out of the maze of convention. Whether you're moved to play the bouzouki or draw with an ink brush, you don’t have to look very far to connect with other people who are already doing it, obsessing about it or teaching it.

In the good old days, the sense of possibility was circumscribed by where you lived. I didn’t downhill ski until I was nineteen, for the simple reason that my parents didn’t ski and I grew up in parts of Northern Quebec and Ontario that had no ski hills. Skiing could not inspire me because for all practical purposes it did not exist. The sway of location has been steadily eroding at the hands of print media, radio, movies, telephone and television, although it's still true that Manhattan, Peace River and Real de Catorce present very different potentials to their residents.

What the Net does differently is to link strangers by their aspirations in a sort of reverse diaspora. It’s not just that we can discover a novel form of artistic expression, we can join the conversation. In a networked world, we are more free to establish a relationship that inspires and supports a creative journey.

Tomorrow: From Out of Their Eyes

(Things Behind the Sun, Part II)

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

– Irish proverb

It’s been noted that your social group will help you develop up to the level of the collective. After that, the family, tribe or nation becomes more anchor than float. For a few, like my friend Tom, growth can continue despite this because he or she bears the weight more easily. The majority come to a halt, however; that’s why there is a society in the first place. Societies are also thought to evolve – they certainly change – but this is a much slower, more complex and less well understood process.

Of the three levels of originality, the first two (individual and social) have distinct immune systems. If you take up step-dancing you may raise a few eyebrows but you won’t face unbridled censure (not in a Western democracy, at least). Step-dancing as a creative hobby falls within the bounds of convention. It may be original for you, but not for the society. If you dream of step-dancing but can’t bring yourself to start, you’re dealing with an individual, internal struggle like overwhelm, perfectionism or procrastination.

If you decide to step-dance naked on the steps of Toronto City Hall in January, you’ll raise more than eyebrows because it won’t just be original for you but for Toronto as well. You’re in for a rough ride because there are specific laws that prohibit this sort of thing, and convincing the various levels of government to change those will take some doing. This sort of movement isn’t unheard of, although in that case ten years later the removal of legal restrictions has made virtually no difference in behaviour because the societal taboo hasn’t shifted at all.

Nudity is a very deeply engrained taboo, of course, and you can be socially original in much less controversial ways. Still, whenever you provoke a group response you will face some kind of pressure.

Tomorrow: Let Goodly Sin and Sunshine In

(Things Behind the Sun, Part I)

You’ll find renown while people frown
At things that you say
But say what you’ll say

- Nick Drake, Things Behind the Sun

I had a friend named Tom through grades 8 and 9. His father worked for a dredging company that moved from job to job and so his family was only in our town for a couple years. Tom was one of those rare, magnetic people who has their own way of being and doesn’t really give a damn if anybody else approves. He was hysterically funny even when he wasn’t trying and you never knew what he would come up with next.

Most people aren’t like Tom. They find it quite difficult to overlook the opinions of others, even when they feel strongly about what they’re doing. More and more is being learned about our social nature, and this biological and cultural programming runs deep. Obviously this is largely positive, but we often shy away from an original and meaningful life because of convictions we do not hold.

In Change or Die, Alan Deutschman maintains that the first and essential step to change of any kind is relationship. What’s necessary is a bond to a person or community that can instill hope and the belief that change is possible. In other words, it may be that when a particular set of social conventions is holding us back, we upgrade the network instead of trying to jettison the status quo.

Tomorrow: Down Below They Never Grow

(Lucky Man, Part V)

Burning – all night long
Burning – at the gates of dawn
Singing – near and far
Singing – to raise the morning star.

- Bruce Cockburn, Get to Raise the Morning Star



In Greek mythology, Zeus hid fire from humans to punish them for a trick played by Prometheus when offering a sacrifice. Prometheus would steal that fire later and give it back to humans along with other “civilizing arts”. In some tellings of the story, this was bestowed as the defining characteristic of a human.

If creative fire is the gift that makes us who we are, then we not only insult the gods when we disregard it, we also close off our best avenue of self-discovery. One of the great ironies of the human condition is that we are most ourselves when we have the least trace of a self. When we dissolve into a creative experience, unencumbered by the chattering self-reflective muzak that typically fills our waking consciousness, we step outside our concepts and into our essential nature.

This dramatic shift in perspective makes all the difference because, as Ken Wilber puts it, awareness itself is transformative. We are forced to acknowledge that although we have thoughts, sensations and emotions, we are more than that. Albert Hofmann, the chemist who stumbled onto LSD while experimenting with ergot fungus, was profoundly affected by being flung beyond his conventional identity:

What one commonly takes as the reality, including the reality of one’s own individual person, by no means signifies something fixed, but rather something that is ambiguous . . . there are many realities.

Whether we call it flow, satori or trip, the hallmark of the creative experience is dropping from self-awareness into a pure awareness of the painting/writing/singing/dancing. Prometheus gave us the creative fire; our task is to take it in hand and forge the meaning of our lives.

PS. I backdated this post to Sunday because I was so madly busy I didn't finish my writing for the week. This way I can start a new topic today to keep the weekly series format intact. Mea culpa.

(Lucky Man, Part IV)

One should go through life, be it red or blue, stark naked and accompanied by the music of a subtle fisherman.

– Francis Picabia

At a certain point early in our lives, we put clothes on. We put them on not to protect ourselves from the snow or the sun, but because of a vague and growing feeling that it’s wrong to be naked. Our parents and others close to us instill this sense of propriety, of course. They do so for many reasons, intentional and otherwise, but the upshot is we come to see our unadorned human form as inappropriate.

Creative endeavours are often treated the same way, albeit later – you’ll get more time to draw and build Lego cities than you will to run around unfettered by clothing. There comes a point, however, when most of us get the sense it’s time to put away the paintbrush and get on with the business of life. The creative act becomes tainted, unsuitable, not for us.

It’s tricky to change a deeply ingrained belief, but our entire approach to living hinges on exactly this sort of conviction. Is life nasty, brutish and short or a field of infinite potential? Are humans fundamentally good or bad? Is it frivolous or crucial to write a song?

In our quest to be happy and find meaning in a ceaselessly evolving world, we can learn to be naked again through the creative act. We can rediscover our unabashed delight in this ephemeral spark of existence by participating in life as it is and as we imagine it might be, not just as it has been handed to us.

Tomorrow: Fire in my Hands