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| "CAPTURED" AT THE CURE (A BAR IN DOWNTOWN REGINA SK) |
NON DESISTAS NON EXIERIS. NEVER GIVE UP NEVER SURRENDER. Hmmm. Not for me. I admit it. I AM A QUITTER.
I quit scuba; I quit swimming; I quit running; I quit
playing hockey; I quit playing in a band; I quit guitar busking. I gave up on
all these activities. General speaking,
these statements are true, specifically speaking, these statements are
lies. I shall explain.
Generally speaking, “Some said things are true;
specifically speaking these same said things can be lies” was one of my
favorite lines that I often delivered to students when I was a Psychology professor
at the University of Regina.
To translate this line, I will present some examples: Most people believe that lifelong tobacco and
alcohol addictions to be life shortening. Generally, this statement is
true. Smoking cigarettes and cigars have
debilitating consequences, compromising both good health and longevity. Specifically,
for some people, this statement is an outright lie because … everyone seems to
know someone, an aunt or uncle or somebody, who drank a bottle of whiskey and
smoked cigars every single day of that someone’s life.
Another example:
A regimen of physical exercise enhances one’s life. Generally, this statement too, is true. And this statement for some is an outright
lie. I mean, really, everyone knows
someone who had a heart attack and died while running, or someone who got
cancer and died even though that deceased person went to the gym for a workout every
single day.
Following this same logic, all my “I quit” opening
statements are both truths and lies.
I did quit scuba.
But I quit only because I came to love snorkeling better than
scuba. For those not-in-the-know, to
become a certified scuba diver, one needs to become very proficient in
snorkeling first. Snorkeling is
underwater swimming with a mask and fins, but no air tank attached. To be a decent scuba diver, one needs to be
technically very mentally fit, but only moderately physically fit. To be a good snorkeler, one needs to be
extremely physically fit. And because I
am always striving for fitness, I ditched the scuba tank and became a full-time
snorkeler instead. I also quit scuba to
be a swimming instructor.
I did quit swimming.
As a kid I swam all summer, sometimes in nearby Lac Pelletier,
oftentimes in Notekeu Creek situated a quarter mile from our town, Vanguard,
Saskatchewan. As a university undergrad
I swam a mile every morning before classes (individual medley during the seven
o’clock a.m. lane swim). And for just one year during my undergrad studies, I
joined the university dive team. For
over a decade I was a swimming and snorkeling and spring-board diving
instructor with the Regina YMCA. I quit
swimming and began long-distance running.
Running long-distance was my daily passion for years
and years and years. Rain or shine, 30
degrees below or 30 degrees above, I ran to work each weekday, and every Sunday
ran 10 miles with my friend, Burt. For
13 years straight Burt and I competed in the half-marathon at the Echo Lake
Road Race. And my very first sanctioned
Saskatchewan Marathon (26 miles), I ran with Burt in Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan. (Burt was a very seasoned
marathoner, running the Saskatchewan Marathon, the Manitoba Marathon, and the
Honolulu Marathon each year.) I even
wrote my master’s thesis on long-distance running, “ONE HUNDRED DAYS AT THE
HOUSE OF CONCORD: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF YOUNG OFFENDERS IN AN EXERCISE
PROGRAMME. Since Burt’s passing,
gradually over the years I have become very much a fair-weather runner. By fair-weather I do mean fair weather,
running only on occasion in fall, never in winter, some in springtime, and
almost every day in the summertime.
With Burt being no longer, I jettisoned my winter
running for winter pond hockey. My
hockey history I love to brag is … that I played 10 years in the NHL (the
“Notekeu Hockey League”).
In “that” NHL, I played Wee-Wee, Pee-Wee, Bantam, Midget, and Senior
hockey for the Vanguard Eagles.
Following my “NHL” career, I played another year of competitive senior
hockey for the Swift Current Indians, followed by years of recreational hockey
with a team of which I was a founding member, The Regina Icemen. And after team hockey, I just now play pond
hockey. With pond hockey I’ve no commitment to team nor time – I just play
whenever and however long I want.
About the time I quit organized team hockey for good,
I also quit playing in bands.
Factoid: I used to really love
playing rhythm guitar in bands and doing lots of gigs with my bandmates. However, being a bandmate means commitment
and compromise. Being a bandmate means
to commit to gigs, and considerable compromise on everyone’s part to
accommodate playlists and practice times.
Being a bandmate is a big deal. I
ditched being a bandmate to become a guitar busker.
For several years I played the role of being the
quintessential guitar busker. In my
Bobby Dylan alterity, I traveled far and wide and dressed the part. In my Bobby Dylan alterity, I kept my shock
of sun-bleached hair messy, donned my cool white shades, white, tight t-shirts,
faded blue jeans, and leather work boots.
In such garb I headed west on buskations to Calgary, Brooks, and Taber
in Alberta, and Salmon Arm, Kamloops, and Ferine in British Columbia. Elsewhere in other countries, I have traveled
on buskations to Amsterdam in The Netherlands, Limerick and Dublin in Ireland,
Marrakech in Morocco. Saying this, I
would be remiss not to mention that in most of these cities where I was busking
with my guitar and harpoon, I was also portrait busking with my pencil and
sketchpad. And now I am seriously
considering busking mostly with my pencil and sketchpad. Not that I would
ever give up guitar busking altogether but it’s time to sharpen my pencil and
transition yet again.
Some MARRAKECH MEMORIES busking with my pencil:
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| MOHAMED (A GUITAR BUSKER I MET IN MARRAKECH) |
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| BUSKING WITH MOHAMED'S GUITAR IN MARRAKECH |
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| ANOTHER SOLO SURRENDER AT THE CURE |
NON DESISTAS NON EXIERIS. NEVER GIVE UP NEVER SURRENDER. There is nothing wrong with this motto. Non Desistas Non Exieris is rah rah macho and appealing for motivating athletes and entrepreneurs. I know it’s a real team rouser, a very stirring coach team shoutout just before every match. Factoid: Even I employed a similar immature soldiering metaphor at the start of every game for every soccer team I coached. “DOUBLE DIGITS – NO PRISONERS!” (translation: Let’s score high numbers and be aggressively relentless on offence and defense) was our collective team-member shout out, pumping our fists in the process.
Reflecting
on all this, I was aggressively pushing a “might is right” and intrepid
attitude, a rather adolescent mentality.
Our pre-game raffish hurrah was loud enough to bogart the other team before
the staring whistle. Actually, I was
instilling in my players that the other team was an adversary, denying myself
the opportunity to promote to young minds that in any sport, losing is just as
important as winning, both teams, not matter the outcome, being very necessary
to promote the very essence of sport. NON DESISTAS NON EXIERIS for soldiers, I’ve no
quarrel. NON DESISTAS NON EXEIRIS as a
military metaphor for entrepreneurs, I’ve no quarrel. NON DESISTAS NON EXEIRIS for me has been displacing
one behavior for another, in my ever-wanting quest to develop and move on. And I’ve no quarrel with that either.
Marching (and strumming) in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:
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| SUMMER SOLSTICE GIG-MATES AT BUSHWAKKER BREW PUB L-R TOP: DONNY AND DEREK, BARON AND SELF L-R BOTTOM: CARA, OLIVIA, TRENT |
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