I disagree whole heartedly with the concept that there is “No Such Thing As A Busking…
By: Maurice Charles
Tags: Society, Narrative, Mental Health, Marijuana, Philosophy

I disagree whole heartedly with the concept that there is “No Such Thing As A Busking Philosopher”. Maybe it is because there are pennies for our thoughts, nickels for our dreams; and possibly because it is cynicism that life unto itself is valuable beyond the scope of an insurance claim, (in my case a digital album) or even a Dali or Van Gogh painting.

Injuring your spine in service is nothing to be ashamed of; what is to be ashamed of is that humanity historically places war on bodies and validates these approaches whereas healing oneself could be radically criminal, if not a means to profile. For my trauma is simply the acceptance that “work smarter not harder” may be a corresponding relationship that pits Voltaire’s philosophy against Dali’s. The correlation being ones pragmatism on grounding oneself amidst what he considered naivety and optimism, against mapping a dream and physically embodying said attribute for communities to share in.

Voltaire urges one on the Heroes Quest to; and I quote…

“Seek out a modest few little acres, and build a small farm, and casting out all vain mindless speculations as to the meaning of this meaningless world, we will fulfill our function. Working God’s green Earth from dawn to dusk.”

Three more of his vocal ideologies leading to understanding his perspective as recorded in this reality are…

(1–2) “It is dangerous to be right in matters in which the established authorities are wrong.” Another robust viewpoint on the cognizance may suggest; “Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in total awareness or pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude and infinity.”

My mental illness is due to dissociation about our realities acceptance of “race”(gender) as a litmus to design institutions of equity while devaluing the true power of humanity as a collective stream of consciousness or “God” on Earth. Much to the cynics whom take Nietzsche’s quote as prophecy; still the third observation of Voltaire suggests;

(3) “What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error, let us all pardon reciprocally each-others folly. That is the first law of nature.”

While Dali’s inquisition on reality strikes on interest regarding dreams as catalyst of his meditations; while the reality itself is a vessel to share them.

“ Let the labyrinth of wrinkles be furrowed in my brow with the red-hot iron of my own life, let my hair whiten and my step become vacillating, on condition that I can save the intelligence of my soul — let my unformed childhood soul, as it ages, assume the rational and esthetic forms of an architecture, let me learn just everything that others cannot teach me, what only life would be capable of marking deeply in my skin!”

The reflection of mental health calls for me to retract the inception that my thoughts on “race” (gender) are ill when accepting the concept that; “The sole difference between myself and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!” A play on pentameter in that one can simply live life with the graces that they are given, and harbor other emotions and not be “angry” or “disillusioned” by the formative reality we share.

I’d like to offer three more for Dali’s perspective regarding reality,

(1–2) “I believe that the moment is near when by a procedure of active, paranoiac thought, it will be possible to systemize confusion, and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality.” In the case of being active he says; “Give me two hours a day of activity, and I’ll take the other twenty-two in dreams.”

So one of these men dreams in the unconscious while the other dreams in the conscious; which leads to what seemingly threatens the artists’ sense of value through the following Dali quote…

(3) “I don’t do drugs, I am drugs.” Which I in my personal persistence of memory recall reading John Ehrlichman’s quote…

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or be black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

So the grand lie is that artists who speak out against authority are not valuable; when in actuality our lives are ripples of time repeating itself; our aim to call out the patterns and correct the course. Our lives are extensions of our parent’s dreams thus we are art itself. Art is the only reflective cheques and balances to the very institutions that try to mentally and physically contain the aspirations of our consciousness as it is dormant in humanity.

Philosophy is with you everyday; but maybe my perceptive “mental illness” and your “spinal displacement” are reflections of such attributes where philosophy is treated as a part-time (not so serious) occupation, in my perspective, and potentially for you; nobody has the spine to engage in creating or manifesting change for the betterment of one another’s health.

While there are no direct scapegoats; and while I offer few if any answers on how to better the paradoxical behaviors set forth by the generations before; I can offer the suggestion that while things may not always make cents; it doesn’t mean that the artists’ approach didn’t make sense. Therein lies the humor of unknown wavelengths of meditation. It’s your body of work. If you yourself are the “drug” you as living art are enough.

(Especially if the litmus is that you require water and sunlight to be considered a “drug” in my opinion).

If your art is a shared response of unconsciousness; further objectified as a physical installation as a “drug”; that is an option worthy of Dali…

Furthermore, If doing what you desire to do to heal or take recognition that humanity in the “drug war” on Cannabis is discredited, and you choose to option holistic approaches; that in and of itself is a testament to not accepting the reality as Voltaire’s defined “establishment” dictates.

Hopefully the pennies and nickels will add up; if not in our generation the next; is the philosophy I’ve been taking; but I am also welcome to trying to embody change. You are not alone.