Folk Festival

Last week I began my new job at Neegan Burnside, a civil engineering firm in Winnipeg. They work in northern communities in Canada, water, wastewater and infrastructure stuff. No complex, technical, expensive stuff here, but a fair bit of travel around the province and beyond, and a tiny office. Small enough to know everyone’s name and probably a few other key facts as well. That first week though, I only worked two days, the week was cut short on both sides, by Canada day on Monday, and the Folk Festival on Thursday and Friday. The festival extended to Saturday and Sunday of course, but those days are off by default in this country, thanks to the blood spilled by our heroic forefathers over the centuries in defense of western civilization. Well, not my forefathers, though I’m sure that they performed other actions, such as plowing, in equally heroic fashion.

The thing that surprised me most about the Winnipeg Folk Festival was that I had never been before. Music was just the beginning. Well, music wasn’t actually the beginning, speaking chronologically. Days ended with music, and continued with more music at the camp site, but by using the cliché that something, music in this case, is ‘just the beginning’ I mean that there was a lot going on in addition. These additional items of interest were the natural setting, the crowds of people (and what an eclectic bunch), food, and the rather ambiguous ‘good times’. Incidentally, volunteering is the way to go. Volunteers get free admission, food, backstage access, and an embarrassing amount of praise regarding their indispensability. I for one was not indispensable, as Tavern Security. Why anyone would think that I would make a good bouncer is not within my capacity to fathom, but even further beyond that capacity is why 17 bouncers are needed at the beer gardens of a family-friendly celebration of folk music, peace and love.

One foolish idea that I had was that I would meet up with my cousins at the campground, and set up next to them. The campground is a vast field with over 70,000 tents, and there is no finding of anyone in specific. In fact, it is a rule throughout such an event that you cannot set out to find anyone in particular but if you wander around long enough you will find someone, an old friend or perhaps a new one. This is right out of Siddhartha—finding is better than seeking. The downfall of the seeker is the joy of the finder—the objects to be found are dynamically infinite, not only beyond count but in constant flux.

I was worried that it would be hard to transition from the last two months of random jobs, job hunting and music festival attendance to a regular office schedule. Time will tell, but the first full week wasn’t so bad. Still, it’s hard to get too excited about grey carpets, grey cubicle walls and fluorescent lights. While I’m not excited about those things, the people to work with, the huge part of my country that most people never see, and the problems to work on in that region, should keep me going for a while. I think that when it comes to finding the right place to be at the right time, at some point you just have to pick. One thing which I lack, and I know I’m not the only one in my generation, is depth of experience. We’re all about the breadth. I surprised myself with the realization that I didn’t want to travel around the world and do something different in a different place each year. I was also surprised by the force of that realization; it was a potent idea, potent enough to get me to stay in Winnipeg with no immediate plan to leave.

It seems to me that there are lots of ways to throw away vast stretches of time without actually living, but one in particular—refusal to leave home, see the world and chase dreams—gets a disproportionate amount of press. What about running around constantly without a home and failing to see much of anything on a meaningful level?

There’s this feature on the Facebook website that lets you show everyone a world map highlighted with all the places you’ve been. General disdain aside for all the extras on Facebook—it started as a brilliant networking site and I still use it to catch up with all sorts of people—there is something about that map that makes me uneasy. I don’t want to say that having a map like that is a terrible thing, so I will introduce an independent character to say it:

Soren the Angry Stegosaurus: I am angry! In part it is because I am being chased by bees. The bees here in the Cretaceous Period are much larger than the ones you know, and have a painful sting, but what stings me even more is the notion of a map to keep track of all the places that I have gone. In an absolute sense, such a thing is morally wrong. It is not resonant with the spiritual energies of the world and I find it abhorrent.

Now, I wouldn’t go nearly so far as Soren. If keeping track of the countries you have visited online makes you happy, more power to you. For me, I think it would end up reducing genuine life experiences to ticks on a check-list. I can’t figure out why that is so tempting. It must by a symptom of a wider condition, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it is a desire to set quantifiable standards for a successful life, and see steady progress. People seem to be really insecure across the board. Ugly plants grow with confidence alongside pretty ones, and obnoxious animals like squirrels chatter as if they owned the place and never worry that perhaps there’s more to life than hoarding nuts and chattering. People though, they can’t receive enough outside affirmation to slake their insecurity. Even accomplished, confident people. A subject for future thought.

Challenging Conversations

I think that challenging conversations are an important part of life for people who don't want to stop learning or growing. The things we say can be divided into three categories:

1) Communication of facts
2) Genuine expression of love or kindness that is gratuitous to bare physical existence but not directly challenging.
3) Challenging conversation
4) Bullshit

A certain amount of (1) is necessary. This would include things like "we ran out of milk," or "the cat barfed on the rug."

I sometimes have a hard time with (2), and I suspect that others do as well. It could range from "thanks" to "girl you look so pretty to me, not unlike the Spanish city to me." Sometimes (2) feels like (4). I think a good litmus test is, if it feels obligatory, it's bullshit.

By "challenging conversation" I mean questions or arguments that force someone to defend their actions or opinions, or at least to think about them more closely. This kind of talk bugs some people all the time and all people some of the time. First, you have to think. Second, you may be placed in the awkward position of realizng that your deeds or opinions are stupid, and nobody likes that. Also, it can seem confrontational--it often is confrontational, especially when the person doing the challenging is not open to being challenged.

A certain amount of (4) is necessary as well. I include everything commonly referred to as "small talk" in this category. I accept that some amount of meaningless conversation is necessary to build rapport and make friends. What makes my day, though, is the unexpected challenge that brings a converstaion out of the realm of (4) and into (3). For example, imagine this hypothetical conversation where someone returns from working overseas and sees old acquantances for the first time:

A: When did you get back?
B: Last month.
A: How was the experience?
B: Good.
A: (pause)

In general, an awkward pause after a short, uninformative answer like "good" is a good sign that your conversation is deep into (4) territory.

B: It was a good experience. I learned a lot.

A (option 1): Good!

A (option 2): Why was it good? What did you learn?

If A goes with option 1, there is no harm done (unless we count wasted time as harm, which we should.) If A goes with option 2, we have created a challenging conversation. B will have to think before answering, and reflect on why the experience was "good" and what he or she learned. If B was just shovelling out (4) and hoping to continue in that vein, the transition into a challenging conversation will be like a slap in the eyes.

The other day Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door while I was painting. They got right into challenging conversation, by asking me what I thought of all the pain and suffering in the world. I gave my thoughts, basically that it's a necessary corrolary of having freedom, that without it we'd have nothing to do, and that an honest look at the world we live in suggests God may be a little more "Old Testament" than we'd prefer to think. Then I had to defend my ideas, and also defend why my beliefs about the Jesus, prophecies and the Bible did not line up with those of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Honestly, I didn't mind. If I can't even articulate my beliefs about these important issues and defend myself against Jehovah's Witnesses, then maybe I should convert. (I didn't convert.)

The only problem with those types is that they are usually there to challenge, not to learn or be challenged. I read in the paper once that the problem with the evangelical religions is that it changes people from students and observers of the world into "fixers"--that at the age of 5 they already have the answers to all of life's deepest questions. At the age of 5 I had all the answers, too. I wonder what happened in the interrim to make me so much dumber. Anyway, as long as I'm in a good mood I like to talk to missionaries as long as possible, because I figure most people like them less than I do and if they're talking to me they're not talking to anyone else. It's a service to the community.

I usually enjoy it when someone asks me a challenging question, or responds well to my challenging question. I agree that it may be uncomfortable, but I suspect the secret to a meaningful life is to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, and to limit times of comfort to a minimum, like the breaks in between boxing rounds. This is, of course, easier said than meant.
Am I really prepared to live that way? By all means, challenge me on it.