I met a shaman.
It's true. Sobey's is apparently the hub for all that is strange and odd. The universe funnels all bizarreness into this one location where you can purchase fried chicken and a pop all whilst enjoying the circus that wanders through.
I was sitting at that same table on the same day minding my own business studying mirror neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex when this rather rotund man dressed all in black ambles in. He looked out of place with his matching rollie-suitcase and obsidian-colored duffel bag which he plopped down at the table next to me that just moments before had been occupied by résumé-plumber-trucker guy. He eyed the room, then eyed my textbook, then grinned widely at me. Noticing that my earphones were on, he started gesticulating wildly to the point where I had the option of doing two things: A. Humor this guy or B. Briskly pack up all my belongings, walk away while pretending to ignore his protests for attention, half-run-half-mosey to a quiet location all the while stealing quick glances back to see if he's following me then setting up shop in a place where I won't be disturbed hopefully.
I have the bad habit of doing the former because I like to hear people's stories, so I pulled off my earbuds and set them down. He proceeded in a very thick immigrant accent to tell me how he's a shaman and sometimes he has to make sure he doesn't think certain things otherwise they happen, and often he thinks bad things and bad things happen to people. He's been trying for a long time to cleanse his mind and try not to think about things. He told me how he owned a three-quarters of a million dollar property just somewhere around the Caribbean islands and how he had three wives but he put that all behind him and sold all his wares so that he could tell the world about the truth. He said he operated on Whyte Ave (you might run into this guy sometime, excitement!) trying to tell the drunks about the truth.
I was wondering what the truth was when he turns and points to the University and asks me why I would go to this place of stupidity to study. I asked him what he meant, and he said, "This place is stupidity. You cannot frame the world in a classroom. Why do you go to a place of stupidity to study the truth? You will not find truth in a field of stupidity. I have learned not to lead with my mind but more with my heart. You cannot know the world if you don't experience it. In the same that you go geese hunting, you cannot try to go find the geese, you need to let the geese come to you. I have learned that sometimes it is better in life to not seek the truth but to let the truth come to you."
I thought he had a point, but at this point I thought he was also insane. He didn't seem schizo and he had a tremor when he moved his hand so I was thinking alcohol, but he didn't smell of cheap Boxer beer. I liked what he said, and told him that sometimes you need to frame the world in order to understand it better, like in pieces for better scrutiny. But you also need those experiences to learn the world too - how can you describe Rome in a paragraph? And sometimes in order to learn what things are, you need to know what they are not. Sometimes you need to experience stupidity in order to know that it is not the truth.
He was starting to irritate me when he started talking about how much he hated certain religions, and began listing them. He described how he wanted to start a new colony based on this model of society that was outlined to him in a book he was holding. I wrote down the title, "The First and Last Freedom by J. Krishnamurti" which had a foreword from Aldous Huxley, and perused it a bit, flipping through the pages on love and on community and on family and such. Something to read on a rainy day.
I had to go back to class so I shook this man's hand and wished him all the best. I had fun talking to him even though my conclusion at the end of the day was that he was balls out fucking psychotic.
But he's a shaman. Don't get to meet one every day.
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