Saturday, May 4, 2019

Whimsy-school

I've been thinking a bit about the future lately. One consequence of having a life threatening tumor removed is it gives you a recreational perspective that extends beyond your lifetime.

So looking on the post mortem bright-side, given the insect apocalypse or a global warming unfrozen pathogen, nuclear war or global oxygen depletion doesn't put a jolly old kibosh on the human experiment.

What could a future look like given mechanized labour, universal health care and a baseline standardized income socially?

It would most certainly lead to a radical increase in 'spare time' and an increased search for meaning which begs the question I don't see evidence of anyone, layman or social engineers discussing.
What's important to people over and above wage-slavery?

My opinion, based on being a relatively successful international street performer and clown is that people relish communing and instinctively recognizing whimsy and quality inclusive playful structures.

I've never seen people happier or more delighted in any of the cultures I've visited than when they were collectively under the spell of some unexpected highly proficient whimsycologist.

I would like to see in the near future, along with the current new development where gas powered vehicles are becoming banned from city centers, [Madrid and Amsterdam in development], civically engineered free expression zones or parks and whimsy-schools that facilitated peoples imaginative expression there-in.

Because I've been doing it for 30 years and had a great time doing it while acknowledging the audiences I formed got more out of it than I did. I think it's universal and on some small level profound socially.

Nor is it new or particularly contemporary. The human towers of the Catalonia and the Valencian Communities are intrinsically whimsical human expressions and were declared by UNESCO to be amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

There are old Stilt dances and ceremonies in Europe, South America Polynesia and Africa that cultures spend time and energy promoting and preserving for no other reason than playful ritual quantifies the otherwise chaos of the human condition.
Same with Clown, itself an entirely whimsical social construct that's embedded in cultures universally.

I think my pithy motif from years ago “Who Dares...Grins” could hold a powerful relevance in a future heavy with potential free time and I'm wondering if I should spearhead a 'whimsy-school' in my dotage.


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