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Dave's BIO
Biography- 'an account of the series of events making up a person's life'.
Given the above definition, a biography is deigned to either be misleading ( incomplete) or endless (incomplete). Still, it can be nice to hear a little of what someone thinks about their own life, to date. I will do this here.
It is also
important to note that anyone's life is not comprised wholely, or
even predominately, of their own actions but, as well, those of
others. In fact, only God- or members of Its staff- could offer
an accurate portrayal of anyone's life, which perhaps IS this on-going
'scenario' we call Life. In other words, our "bio" is a
fluid and very real transaction without stops and starts,
sentences or paragraphs. Methinks there are no parameters to 'a
life'.
Inspite of all these deep thoughts, I was born in Hamilton, Ontario,Canada. As circumstance would have it, I know nearly nothing about Hamilton, having left it after about a year.
I did what so many North Americans have done, throughout my life. I ate, slept, went to school and preferred not to. I got physically larger and became a 'teen-ager'. I 'prematurely' did those things that are reserved for "adults" and by the time I was no longer a 'teen', I had a 'nervous breakdown'- whatever that is.
At one level of consideration, I was caught between being some kind of a macho guy and being a more sensitive poetical type. I had a few 'heroes' who were rich, famous and poetical. I sold my first painting to one of them, as it happened. A notorious Canadian poet (imagine that!) came by the store where I worked. I noticed him looking at a picture I had painted, of himself! He came back the next day (with some money) and purchased it. He left his autograph and his 'transcendent' wet footprints on the floor.
By the time I hit the psychiatric ward a year later, my mind was crowded, wall-papered, with the lyrics of his music. Morose lyrics, frightening to some, (including me), resonated and echoed in my mind. They had once been a panacea for my devastated emotions but had become intimidating and would not go away. My 'hurt' was precipitated by a girlfriend who had moved away and replaced me.
The 'psych ward' became my retreat from university. University was ridiculous. The art program didn't give me enough class time or homework. I had been alone and bored, and required "adulation prior to friendship". I guess this essentially means that I was an operative snob who was avoiding relationship, out of fear. I had spent my time as one 'little boy lost', taking himself so seriously... I was intensely involved in a mental pursuit of the "real" meaning of life... anything but life itself! I succumbed to this arduous insanity (not that life is meaningless, but that it requires participation more than abstraction). In sequence, I saw a need for help, went to a chapel, a chaplain, a psychologist, an M.D. and a psychiatrist. Everybody but God or a friend. (I had none that I knew of).
I was invited to the Hospital Psychiatric ward.
Abbreviating this rendering of 'my' life, I eventually spoke to 'God' six years later, and have been different ever since. 30 years hence, I am alive, having survived numerous suicide attempts with razor blades and drugs. I survived, as well, numerous hospital and recovery environments. It didn't matter where I went, no one had the answers or insight to help me, except perhaps the 'shrink' I'd left behind when I moved to British Columbia. But my 'presumption of God' remains and dissolves the absurd and pathetic notion that "we are in this alone" and that there is "no help whatsoever for certain things".
I have no reasonable way, in any one sitting, to include those events that made my life what it is. And besides, it is not events that make my life, any more than rushing water makes a boat :)