People and Places – Burke 3 – It gives you a good background

People and Places – Burke 3 – It gives you a good background



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Mark: So you went to high school in Toronto?
Burke: Ahm no actually. I went to elementary school and in grade three I moved to a small town about an hour north of Toronto called “Stouffville“.
Mark: Stouffville. S-t…?
Burke: O-u-f-f-v-i-l-l-e. Named after the Stouffes who were the original settlling family in the area. It is now basically all part of the GTA of Toronto. It is kind of been absorbed into the massive thing that is Toronto. Now.
Mark: Ok. Right. Ok. A small place that was absorbed by a big city.
Burke: Yeah well it is pretty close to that anyway. Yeah. Now it sort of a bed-town for people who work in the city and stuff….Pretty much…So yeah…
Mark: So you did your education in Ontario…like..?
Burke: Yes and as is typical for north Americans moved away to attend university and I went to a city called Hamilton which is a little bit east …No. Is it east or west of Toronto? About an hour and a half west of Toronto.
Mark: So you are still in Ontario?
Burke: Still in Ontario. Yeah.
Mark: What did you study for that first degree?
Burke: I was a … it is embarrassing to say it but a psychology major.
Mark: Psychology. I think psychology is very interesting.
Burke: It is very interesting but it is not really job applicable unless you get a PhD.
Mark: It gives you a good background, you know…
Burke: Mm.
Mark: to a lot of things; a lot of things like; when you first leave high school I think it is good to read and travel and talk to a lot of people and get a general understanding…of many things.
Burke: Well, I remember…The thing is I was reading my sisters psychology textbook in her undergraduate studies when I was in high school and I was thinking “my god! I can actually study this?” Because it just seemed really interesting; incredible. Abnormal psychology.
Mark: M-hm.
Burke: And so that is what convinced me right there that that was what I wanted to study at that point in time.
Mark: Did you read Freud or Jung?
Burke: Yes, of course it is a little bit considered… Jung is considered a bit on the philosophical side of things and Freud is sort of considered a little bit too ***ual in interpretation.
Mark: *** is an unpopular topic isn’t it?
Burke: Yes. Yes. Exactly. Cover it over if you can. So but yeah… We covered all the major people and …. I just became a bit disillusioned with it in the end because it was trying to act too much like a science.
Mark: Yeah.
Burke: Whereas it is very hard to have that kind of criterion on human beings. You know?
Mark: I agree totally. A lot of things… A lot of questions are not easy to answer and we try to get definite answers, like in maths and physics, and you can’t get definite answers like that in some areas like that.
Burke: But I agree with the basic premise of therapy which is to let out, you know, your feelings and have somebody to talk to as a sounding board, and hopefully guide you into an area where you can, you know, heal any problems or dark areas that you have gone through in your life.
Mark: I agree. I think talking is a great therapy.
Burke: Yeah.
Mark: I think so many people; they suffer and they don’t…they have problems. And just by talking to their friends; by opening up…
Burke: Mm.
Mark: … they can solve their problems and yet so many people aren’t able to talk. They are not able to articulate what it is; how they feel; why they feel that way
Burke: Particularly men obviously.
Mark: Yeah.
Burke: Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. You know. Women are just..I think.. have a natural… a better ability to express themselves. They just talk more. Men tend to hold back expressing of, you know, emotional type issues or things that…
Mark: Yeah:
Burke: You know are a little bit…
Mark: But, you know, I think that is generally true but I think a lot of our male friends are more articulate too.
Burke: Yeah, I agree.
Mark: And I have met some thuggish inarticulate women in my time as well.
Burke: (laughs) There you go