IT'S JUST A MASQUERADE: THIS IS WHO I AM

KIM (PUBLIC HEALTH NURSE)

ELIZABETH (YOUTH WORKER)

KENNEDY (BUSKER)

FAMILY BARBEQUE

My snappy title is in reference to the band, Edward Bear.  And life really is as the band founder, Larry Evoy, sings that It’s just a masquerade.  Life is just a masquerade, and while dancing in this masquerade I want to be really, really cool.  I am a life player of idiosyncratic beliefs and I believe that being a planetary busker would be the coolest of emprises.

However, as an idiosyncratic existentialist I believe most people to be delusional.  For example, our world is the planet, Earth, and Earth is a marvelous blue orb accelerating through space at 107,000 km/h (67,000 mph) while spinning at 1600 km/h (1000 mph).  These spinning facts, according to the astronomers, physicists, and mathematicians, are not a fake.  These facts are true.

Some people, the delusional ones, believe we have a life beyond our Earth, even beyond our death.  For these believers, Heaven is a cosmological or transcendent place to which humans can ascend after we exit our present physical place and physiological state.  This Yang concept of Heaven and Yin concept of Hell is otherworld thinking.  To me, this otherworld thinking is peculiar to the delusional.  These hereafter facts are a fake.  These facts are false. 

And also, methinks this otherworld thinking is an excuse to keep world expectations in this life relatively low.  (Having low expectations in life means there is less chance of being disappointed, I’m guessing.)  I mean, really, expecting God or Jesus to bring us happiness can only bring disappointment.  

There is no question as to whether or not our Earth exists; however, there is a Brobdingnagian question as to whether any otherworld does exist beyond the known tangible one.

For sure I strive to be cool, but as I stated right at the start, being cool is just a masquerade.

FACTOID:  To cope while I maxixe through this masquerade life, I have continued to wear a variety of masks to serve me for whatever the motivation.  My masquerade life has always felt like a surprise exam for which I’ve never had time to study, and masks have contributed to my adequate successes to date.  It’s kind of like don’t judge me – you only see what I choose to show you.  (Nota bene, dear readers, masks can always fool my colleagues and sometimes my friends, but never those who love me.)

A mask can be a metaphor for a guise or a veneer or a camouflage or a front or a pose.  Masks can present the perfect attitude; and masquerades can present the perfect life.  As a masked man I have the usual Lone Ranger issues:  accoutrements, income, work.

• Accoutrements:

For my busking accoutrements I design and deliver my facades in signature fashion.  On the road my mask is a guitar and harmonica, or a sketchpad and mechanical pencil.   Often times, too, I sling a didgeridoo.  Cap-a-pie my mask is always a shock of clean messy hair, a pair of shades, a long-sleeved white shirt with a collar, blue jeans, and work boots.  Keep in mind I go busking to make money.

• Income:

A proverb states that the love of money is the root of all evil.  Here is my skinny on that:  Money is evil, and therefore pelf is not my issue.  I only need enough money to become a planetary busker.  I’m not in it for the pelf.

People close to me think I’m an outlier when I imagine I sell everything, rent a broom closet, and busk the rest of my days.  Perhaps, as inspired by Robert Service, I’ll rent a garret, cold and dark and drear, and there I’ll toil and toil with tireless pen writing my best seller and a few songs to boot out onto the street.

This is not crazy thinking.  Research shows that we enjoy life more when we consume less.  The more we have, the harder it becomes to savor life experiences. 

Factoid:  We can savor only when we simplify.

• Work:

And, so far it seems to me, I have had the perfect life.  I’m fit as a fiddle, have had and continue to have perfect vocations and avocations.

I have had some perfect jobs: pole climber for telephone construction, pipe line laborer in the Rocky Mountains and North West Territories, swimming instructor, high school English teacher, high school guidance counselor, part-time university professor, teacher-counselor for young offenders, hypnotherapist.

I constantly practice to be the perfect planetary busker.  I’ve done street portrait drawing and guitar thrumming in Canada, Holland, Ireland, and Morocco.

And, in spite of being reduced to being perceived as just a busker, I’m still intellectually curious.  For example I can easily answer the existential question: Who am I?

If knowing the real self is the beginning of all wisdom (Aristotle), then I can certainly don my intellectual masks and answer for all of my selves: This is who I am.

Even as an idiosyncratic existentialist I can certainly appreciate a rainbow.

RAINBOW ON BROADWAY AVENUE

SAME RAINBOW FROM WASCANA PARK

Those skating in CHAUCERIAN PARADE this MEMORIAL CUP week in REGINA, CANADA:
I must mention that Brad Hornung (NHL Central Scouting), Gary Dickie (ex-NHL player), and RJ Dickie (current all star hockey and baseball player).

MEMORIAL CUP 2018 GUEST OF HONOR FOR THE FIRST CEREMONIAL PUCK DROP:

 

DREW CALLANDER (NHL'ER AND CURRENT HOCKEY SCOUT)

 

GARY DICKIE (PRO PLAYER), BRAD HORNUNG (PRO SCOUT), DENNIS SOBCHUK (PRO PLAYER)

 

BRAD HORNUNG AND DAN MARR (DIRECTOR OF NHL CENTRAL SCOUTING)

DON CHERRY AND RON MACLEAN

 

A SELFIE WITH DON CHERRY AND RON MACLEAN

RJ DICKIE AND JORDAN EBERLE (NHL'ER)

BRAD HORNUNG FAN

To close I've some TALL TALES for the MEMORIAL CUP 2018:

FACTOIDS: 

Twenty-two of the 29 players officially listed for the REGINA PATS (host team) are at least six feet tall.  Nineteen of the 25 players officially listed for ACADIE-BATHURST TITAN (representative of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League) are at least six feet tall.  Twenty of the 26 players officially for the SWIFT CURRENT BRONCOS (representative team of the Western Hockey League) are at least six feet tall.  Seventeen of the 26 players officially listed for the HAMILTON BULL DOGS (representative team of the Ontario Hockey League) are at least six feet tall.

And this leaves me with yet another existential question:

WHICH TALL TEAM WILL WIN MEMORIAL CUP?

And the existential answer is:   
WHO CARES ... AS LONG AS THERE'S BEER!  

GARY AT THE BAR

THE NONSENSE OF ENTITLEMENT: MY WHOLE NEW WORLD

My CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week includes only my portrait busking consumers:

 

BUSKER PETE

MOUNIOUS

KENNEDY

SHENAE

CHRISTINA

CHARLENE

DRAWING STELLA

STELLA FRAMED

STELLA

BUSKER TIM SHARING MY BUSKSPOT AT SHOPPERS

A not-so-funny thing happened on my way to my usual buskspot at Value Village.  Two Saturdays ago, to my surprise and dismay, a busker named Eugene was strumming in MY SPOT.   A couple of days previous I’d been chatting with Eugene, the busker, when he was busking downtown.  Regrettably, I had arrogantly mentioned that I frequently busk at Value Village, and that I had received permission from the mall manager to do so.  And so to have him nick my pitch caused me concern and even anger.

Factoid:  I busk for the SCHIZOPHRENIA SOCIETY OF SASKATCHEWAN.

Factoid:  Eugene told me that he lied to the mall managers, stating he told them he gives to the charity at his church.   

I was twisted, to say the least.

And just yesterday, another busker, not Eugene, but Pete, was strumming in MY buskspot.  A quick chat with busker Peter revealed that Eugene had tried to muscle him out of this spot, stating that he (Eugene) had exclusive rights to busk at this spot in the mornings, and that Neil (he mentioned me by name) had exclusive rights to busk at this spot in the afternoons.  Yikes, yet another lie from Eugene.  Pete didn’t budge, and he suggested that Eugene take his gripe up with the manager.

Factoid:  Busker Eugene is a liar.  Busker Eugene, in my arrogant judgement, was totally in the right.  Eugene’s madcap gesture toward Pete was untoward.

Factoid:  In the Buskerhood, whoever arrives first gets the buskspot.

Factoid:  In the Buskerhood, a polite and business chit-chat on time allotment for each ought to take place.  In real buskerhoods there is professional etiquette.  If another busker wants your spot, play only for a couple of hours and then move on.

Factoid:  I was twisted only because of my arrogance.  I believe that I, unlike buskers Eugene and Pete, am not a dreg.  I believe that my cap-a-pie garb of a long-sleeved white shirt with a collar, my faded blue jeans, and my polished work boots, sets me not just apart, but significantly above, any other buskers.  I believe that I strum better, stand better (Eugene and Pete are sitting buskers – I always stand tall), and in both a precise and general sense, present better.   

I am not a humble person.  I am not a humble busker.  I promote my own fanfaronade.  I am a busker espousing bluster.

My latest epiphany on busking is that I should never take a buskspot for granted.  And knowing this, both Eugene and Pete have every right to busk in MY spot.  Getting twisted over my imaginary ownership of that buskspot at Value Village was good for me.  Internally I was angry; whereas, externally I was calm, even offering a free portrait for Busker Pete.  As you can see at the header of this particular blog entry, Busker Pete took up my offer.

And so then I decided, to overcome my false sense of entitlement, and focus on portrait busking, should such a situation re-occur.  Both Saturdays I’ve sketched people.  Sketching is not as profitable as guitar busking, but it is more philosophical, which very much suits my nature.  Also, guitar busking, has for me, become a perfunctory performance, thoughtless really.  Sketching someone gives opportunity for a much deeper visit, more intimate, more client/consumer-centered so to speak.

My point for this story is that I chose positive action over negative thinking.  I did something, rather than twist over nothing.   Buskers Eugene and Pete contribute to my personal bildungsroman.

BEHAVE denotes a way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others

To become the person you want to be it is important to behave like the person you want to be.   

Hmmm … thinking about hypnotherapy (one of my usual themes), all persons (clients) come with issues that they perceive detrimental to their imagined lifestyle.  It is this imagined lifestyle people perceive that brings them to therapy.  These people are not happy and they believe fixing specific personal issues will enhance their general happiness.

Fixing a recurring problem proves always to be a difficult endeavor.  Controlling one’s own behavior demands self-control.  Self-control, oftentimes referred to psychology as self-efficacy, is the capacity to regulate thoughts, emotions, and behavior.  (My personal skinny on this:  Controlling one’s thoughts is practically impossible, but whether or not to behave on these thoughts is totally possible.)

Self-control is associated with perceived autonomy and autonomy is frequently presented as akin to free will or free choice or to put in psychology speak, self-efficacy. 

Fixing one’s life flow is necessary to express one’s free will.  For a boost of self-efficacy one has to fix the negative patterns of behavior, including the feng-shui of one’s timetable.  Free flow is necessary for a free spirited and smooth life. 

Controlling such behaviors as addictions is definitely related but a somewhat different matter.  Controlling addictions also involves controlling one’s sociability.  Social measures clearly indicate that behaviors are important judgements.  Camaraderie determines behavior.  Druggies hang out with druggies and jocks hang out with jocks, singer-songwriters hang out with singer-songwriters.

BELIEVE means to accept that something exists.  A belief is a trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something

If you don’t know where you’re going any road will take you there (a familiar adage).  We are born into a world in which we are all on a road to somewhere.   For the delusional and decided among us, that somewhere is real.  For the realists among us, that somewhere happens to be nowhere, except perhaps by our personal design.

Some of us believe in the higher powers of destiny and creation; whereas, some of us believe in the higher power of money and authority.  All of these powers, I BELIEVE, are almost conspiracy theories. 

“Squirrel!” (is the modern term for announcing a slight shift in topic).  Hmmm … Actually I prefer to call it a shaggy-dog conversation but …  

First I’ll contest the belief in the higher power of destiny and creation.  Things happen for a reason and only God knows why.  And the kindergarten question, “Who made God?” along with the Nietzsche answer, “God is dead,” explains pretty much everything.

Next, I’ll dance over the belief in the power of money and authority.  The adage, the love of money is the root of all evil, has that religious Christian connotation of good and evil.  What is good and what is evil is a determination of social values as directly related to humans, which is fine.  For anything inanimate, this adage does not apply.  The world is neutral.  Cliffs do not care who jumps off them, and sticks and stones do not care who throws them, being just two examples.

Religious conviction aside, there reasons why people believe in conspiracy theories.  For psychological reasons whatever, one’s belief in a half-baked tall tale quite the contribution to a person’s desire to be unique and to know things that others don’t know.  Knowing such secrets makes them feel special and different.  An even simpler explanation for why people believe in conspiracy theories is they just make us feel better. 

Factoid:  We feel better imagining that our lives have purpose, rather than believing that our lives have no purpose, other than to procreate and continue the species.  What fun is that!  By evolutionary design such a purpose can be unloads of fun (pun intended), but then that can brings the abuse of power and authority and the #MeToo moments and movements.

For me, existentialism solves the behavior and believe question; however, rather than the yikes-and-what’s-the-point-if-that’s-all-there-is existential dread, I propose a yippee-and-I-can- do-whatever-I-want existential determination.

Meanwhile back at the ranch: 

In patronizing fashion … Don’t ruminate, act.  It’s better to actually do rather than think about doing.  If something is pestering you, do something about it.  And once you have done as much as you can to improve or change your situation, then stop.  Do not resort back to second guessing and overthinking the “what if’s” and “should haves” of the situation.  Such ruminations lead only to anxiety and bitterness.  Things you “should have” done are never-ending think traps. 

Do reflect and not regret upon your actions!