Hughes - he = Hugs

Tricksters

I had been warned, but I passed the stories off as an urban legend. But sure enough, a few years ago, I was walking through the back streets of some tourist trap. I was trying to find the address of a friend who was doing missionary work in some run down slum of the city. My jet lag made my body feel as if each word I spoke drew blood from my veins. I had just received a new set of directions from some bearded man who was chewing on a pipe. The man had led me down this narrow street filled with fruit stands and T-shirt vendors. I carried rolling luggage that tipped sideways whenever I pulled it up over a curb. I had just crossed a street, and was shaking my luggage back on path when a woman let out a scream and threw her infant child in the air. I abandoned my luggage and ran to catch the child like a football. Once the child (a girl) was safe in my arms, I turned to see that not only had the screaming lady disappeared, but so had my luggage. Now I have this kid. In fact, we just celebrated her second birthday at my mother's house. She got a lot of new clothes. I bought her some coloring books and some playdough...

At first, I thought Walsh's chapters would be devoted to Western culture's lack of understanding, and therefore ostracizing of shamanism. I mean, duh, we're bigger and stronger. Why don't we give these cavemen and women some clothes and an iPod?

I don't know. I find all of this debate over shamanism a bit annoying. We can't except new ideas, so we take the founders of some -ism and put them on a pedestal. "Hi unfamiliar culture that uses natural drugs to reach altered states of consciousness. If you're so great, heal this paper cut, right now. Did you see that guys? He can't do it. I knew it. What a jerk."

What I gather from the reading is that some shamanistic cultures might have epileptic leaders. WHAT?! You mean to tell me that, one, there are other cultures, and two, that some people of these other cultures suffer from epilepsy? I don't believe it.

And tricksters? You're telling me that it's just not my culture that's filled with corruption? Ha.

Actually, the tricksters idea reminds me of Man on the Moon. Now, I haven't seen that movie in a long time, but I think I remember the end where Andy Kauffman visits some sort of healer in order to have the cancer pulled out of his body. However, Kauffman mistakenly sees the healer soak a sponge in a red liquid, and hide it in his hand. He then squeezes the sponge onto Kauffman's stomach, giving the illusion that he was digging out something from the skin. Jeez, that's a really sad part of the movie.

But seriously, shamans. It's the drug thing. Sorry. You'll have to fight a battle with other societies that I'm sure you care very little about fighting. Stop doing drugs, and suck on a fruit smoothie or something. Perhaps, if you drink the beverage fast enough, the temperature will give you a brain freeze, and you can have your little personal journies in a numb state. Meanwhile, I, along with the rest of my perfect drug-free peers, won't feel so threatened by a culture that never tried to threaten us in the first place.

The creative personality.

Some people devote portions of their lives slobbering over creative people. What's the difference between the creative and the slobbering fan who wants to be their friend? The fan needs constant attention and stimulation from other people while the creative can lock themselves in a room for hours and hours, ripping tiny pieces of their soul off their chest and pasting the soul to some sort of medium.

No one way of living is better than the other. However, a creative personality can be viewed as a self-centered personality. I think this may be where a lot of creative people run into problems with mental illness. It's when one is not creating and instead devoting time to the myth of how one should be living, that these problems occur. The myth is predictable. Perhaps the artist becomes bored, and boredom erodes the brain until it's time to visit the doctor or leave the world for good. And that's not to say that creativity is the cure all end all to one's problems.

I find the poster regarding mental-illness in the lobby of Olmstead a little interesting. All those pictures of famous creative people tell me it's okay to have a mental illness. Is it implying that I am just as talented as these individuals. When I said the poster was a little interesting, I mean interesting in the sense of... what's the word I'm looking for...? Oh yeah, offensive.

But I need to stop writing this blog, and visit the hospital where my analysis paper lies on life support. Plus, I've got to wake up my daughter from her nap. She has a play date with the children next door. The neighbors' kids are brats.