The long and circuitous journey I’ve taken to get here began in the early summer of 1978 when I was at a picnic with my family in Upstate New York. I was eighteen having just graduated high school. My three year old niece had to be escorted to a rest room which was some distance away and the job was given to me.
I decided to take a shortcut (something I’m always keen to do) through a field of dandelions in full bloom. As we walked, the flowers seemed to take to the air and fly away, startling us. I noticed the dandelions - at least most of them - weren’t dandelions at all, but birds! Specifically, they were American Goldfinch in resplendent breeding plumage. I looked down at my niece and she was applauding with her mouth open in amazement.
Something changed in me that day - something woke up that had been sleeping. There was more to life than deciding what to major in at college, watching TV and hoping for early retirement.
A mentor who lived next door and had been advising me in my academic and career decisions had helped me to understand I was a man of rationality and logic as he was, which was something no one had ever seen in me before - including me. He encouraged me to take a vocational aptitude test to see for myself and his suspicions were confirmed. The test said my best chances for being satisfied in a job was to become either a Systems Analyst, Computer Programmer or an Insurance Actuary. Not exactly the Stand Up Comedian I was hoping for, but there you go…
Ok, I was logical - like the Supertramp song released that year lamented we were all becoming. But, I wanted more than just a label and a career. I wanted to understand life! Tall order.
I started with Ralph Waldo Emerson as I was an avid nature nut like him. I learned much from him over the next couple decades but kept looking. I studied platonism, Spinoza, Thomas Paine, Existentialism, and I have attended a church from every denomination from Quaker to Roman Catholic to Mennonite at least once. I never found anything that resonated with me as much as Epicurean philosophy.
Perhaps after all these years I’m just philosophically exhausted and need a place to rest. We shall see.
Yours Truly
Ken Zauter
