Taking Busking to Heart (...or the Philosophy of Everything)

Hmmm...

If nothing else (but there are things else, I'm just saying, even if there weren't) this trip is definitely leading Stina and me to come up with some philosophies.
New Orleans is a great city for walking. It's all very flat except for the occasional tree root pushing the concrete 2 feet high. Some of you may know that when I walk I talk. So we spent much of today and yesterday talking about why we want to do this.
For some context I must confess, Stina and I have been feeling a bit disheartened by our busking thus far. We have only busked 3 times (aside from by-invitation shows) in the month and a half since leaving Seattle. We haven't been able to quite get into the groove. So this brought up some questions for us... namely, "Why?"
"Why?" led into a couple discussions, all of which stem from some fear. In no particular order they are:
Do we look like beggars? / How can we not look like beggars?
which leads to --> What is "good" busking?

What is the purpose of art? Is busking art? Is our busking art?
Of the many purposes of art, which are worthwhile? / Which do we fulfill?

What can theatre do in terms of making the world a better place?
How can we do that with our theatre?

Should we be busking? How can we develop a process or "great idea" to make our busk exceptional?

Should we busk in Central America?
What is busking's relationship to less privileged or "developing" nations? How does our act translate in Spanish? Are our stilts to heavy for us to comfortably travel with?

Do we think too much?

Hey look, a cockroach! There are lots of them in New Orleans. I think if I were to live here, I would have to get used to them and take one as a pet.

We answered the first three questions (and their subquestions) pretty well, but the last three still haunt us.

The theatre question I think resulted in the most unique philosophy - that I would promote an idea of theatre as a community endeavour... that beyond its entertainment value, theatre helps communities discuss difficult issues. More new theatre should be made. Playwrights should write plays for their communities. People from the community should do the gritty work in rehearsal about it, really getting to know the subject, and the whole community should come out and be participants as audience members. And this philosophy should scale well... Movies should be made the same way, just for a larger community- the U.S., the world. I'm not saying all theatre should be made this way, but I'm hypothesizing that this is the context within which theatre evolved, and the reason for its being in contemporary society.

We know that this trip is just for us, but we're still haunted by a need to do something fulfilling and rewarding and "exceeds expectations". Maybe we'll mellow out as we get more into it.