Tell your story

The recent editorial in the Vancouver Sun talks about a 'clash of traditions' at UBC. (Vancouver Sun, Editorial. Feb 6, 2016). Apparently a UBC Scholar has filed a humans rights tribunal complaint that her indigenous ancestry, and its oral traditions, should exempt her from the 'publish or perish' orthodoxy of the western institution of scholarship, which can be traced back to the Socratic method and Aristotelian logic. She is being denied tenure because of a lack of publications.

As the editorial puts it: '(The oral tradition)...deals not with facts but with the truths inherent in legend and myth': Truths as opposed to facts.

This reminded me of an interview on the CBC show Tapestry where Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber says things like: 'the enlightenment ... robbed us of enchantment, I want it back' and 'There are different ways of knowing, different ways of accessing truth...' (CBC Tapestry - The Tattooed Pastor. Jan 10, 2016 )

Which of course brings us to the similarities between the indigenous oral tradition and religion(You could argue that the Bible is an oral tradition that's been written down): truths do not necessarily depend on facts.

Stories have always been a part of our culture and history. Science and structured logic, somewhat more recent. Most people will have a foot in both worlds, probably most of us lop-sided to one way or the other. Maybe with the discussion at UBC the border will become even more blurred.

Myself, I supposed I've always been more science-minded, facts based, but these ideas have got me thinking. Not that I need to go too far. My past life as musician definitely bridged both: practicing scales, and then more scales, but then those magical moments on stage(perhaps too few for me), when it all worked, and a story somehow emerged.

I still recall a time during the Vancouver Jazz Festival, playing with Coat Cooke and the Evolution, and my back was seriously out-of-whack. I was hobbling to get on stage. Our guitar player, the great Ron Samworth, just looked at me and said: 'Just tell your story, man'.