MY DOPPELGANGER ?!

DOPPELGANGER, was first coined by German author, Jean Paul, in 1796, and translates into English as “double walker” and/or “double goer.” When I first heard the term, I was listening to Canadian writer, Eli Mandel, as he was doing a poetry reading at Balfour Collegiate, Regina, SK in the ‘70s. At that reading, Eli expressed that he saw his doppelganger while on a walk one day, strolling through a city park, and walking near a footbridge. There, Eli noticed his doppelganger leaning over the guard rail and looking straight at him. Eli stated that that was a moment that stopped him. They waved to one another, and then each went along his way. 

“Meeting one’s doppelganger meant imminent death according to my Jewish mythos,” Eli said to us. However, this proved to be not true, at least not for Eli, who passed away in 1992, more than 20 years after a brush with his “double walker.” (Whether it proved true or not for his doppelganger, we will never know.}

Not-so-strangely, as I have just finished watching the series, “1883,” I cannot help but notice one of the main actors, ISABEL MAY,

ISABEL MAY ("1883")

looks a lot like JENNIFER LAWRENCE of “Hunger Games” fame.

JENNIFER LAWRENCE ("HUNGER GAMES")

ISABEL & JENNIFER? JENNIFER & ISABEL?

But lots of people look alike. Unrelated people can share uncanny resemblances, and according to science, people who look similar are also similar genetically. If this is true, then lots of celebrities share lots of genes, especially those that are responsible for facial features.

WILL FERRELL & CHAD SMITH

LINDA EVANELISTA & MILLA JOVOVICH

MATT DAMON & JESSE PLEMONS

A YOUNG BRAD PITT 

A YOUNG ROBERT REDFORD

But Eli Mandel was correct. Not just Jewish folklore presents doppelganger encounters as being menacing and creepy. Gothic horror novels with a doppelganger theme have been around for some time. The American writer, Edgar Allen Poe, wrote about doppelgangers in his William Wilson novel in 1839. In 1846 the Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote, The Double, a horror novel having a doppelganger theme. Another American, Mark Twain, wrote about doppelgangers in The Prince and the Pauper in 1881. And, Despair, another doppelganger story, was written by the Russian American, Vladimir Nabokov in 1934.

In movies, too, there have been doppelgangers. I will just mention five, that I found to be the best: “Dead Ringers” (1988), “The Dark Half” (1993), “Enemy” (2013), “Double” (2013), and “Us” (2019). 

ENEMY

THE DOUBLE

Apparently, the odds of encountering one’s doppelganger are extremely low, with seven billion people on the planet, there is a one in 135 chance that a single pair of doppelgangers exist. 

Dear reader, please take another look at the picture atop this blog post. This is not me. This guy looks like me, but he’s not me. Just by happenchance, this picture jumped out at me while I was scrolling through my Instagram. If looks could kill, this guy is my doppelganger. He looks to be a dead ringer, does he not? Everyone that I have shown this picture to says that I look exactly like that guy on the right, and the younger version of that guy on the left looks exactly like my youngest son! The caption reads that the first picture was taken in Woodstock, and the second picture taken 50 years later. Had I gone to Woodstock in 1969, I might have met him and might have died shortly after!  But I did not go to Woodstock and …

For me, “doppelganger” need not be a pejorative term. Should I ever meet this doppelganger of mine, I really doubt there would be any danger, drama maybe, but not danger.

Now for my public appeal:

If anyone knows or recognizes my doppelganger whose picture appears in this blog post, please have him contact me. Not pretending to be a private investigator on this matter, but rather sideloading this burden onto my readers who are willing to do some Facebook friend farming for me, we can dangerously assume just two facts: 

My doppelganger is an American and my doppelganger went to Woodstock August 15th, or 16th, or 17th, or 18th in 1969. 

And that’s all I’ve got, folks!

IN MY FAVORITE GUITAR SHOPPE

THE IDIOT

 

THE IDIOT 
BY EVERY CANADIAN AND THE REST OF THE WORLD

CARL JUNG AND MY DISCOVERY: I AM A 73-YEAR-OLD ADOLESCENT!

 

SELF-PORTRAIT

Age is just a number.  Hmmm. This wisdom in this idiom may be true, but my age of 73 is a real number. And that number, 73, signals that I am in the winter of my life. According to the statistics, males in my area of the world have a longevity of 78 years.

Yikes!

(So far, I have managed not to think of that number much, unless of course I am writing about it as I am doing right now.)

There must be loads of others like me, who do not seem to pay that much attention to that number designating their age. In just a Google away I can read about an American folk artist, Grandma Moses, who began a prolific painting career at 78. In 2006, one of her paintings, SUGARING OFF, sold for 1.36 million dollars.

SUGARING OFF

I can also read about British-American writer, Harry Bernstein, whose wrote his first novel and bestseller, The Invisible Wall, at 96.

THE INVISIBLE WALL

In that same Google, I am looking at Irish race car driver, Rosemary Smith, at 79 years of age drove a Formula 1 race car.

ROSEMARY SMITH

And there is this Polish American, Leonid Hurwicz, who won a Nobel Prize in Economics at 90.

LEONID HURWICZ

There is the Japanese skier and alpinist, Yuichiro Miura, who reached the top of Mount Everest when he was 80.

YUICHIRO MIURA

Ha! A long-time favorite character of mine, Captain Kirk, (AKA William Shatner), rocketed into real space at 91 years of age!

CAPTAIN KIRK (AKA WILLIAM SHATNER)

These folks are aged, yet proof that people of my age and older, in the winter of their lives, can still take the time to seek and explore new frontiers, can still discover and embrace new lifestyles, and boldly go to where they have never gone before.

Considered a meshuggener by some of my acquaintances, especially those who have been retired for several years, I am oftentimes mocked because I am still working. Who could be so foolish or crazy as me to still be hiking and diving and running and lifting and skiing (and soon to be surfing) and gigging?!

Yikes again!

There I was, just minding my own business, next thing I knew I was the same age as old people! (Admittedly, with some glee or disgusting schadenfreude, age has seemed to emasculate these same people who mock me.)

CARL JUNG stated, “The world will ask who you are and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.”

Well the world has been telling me who I am for years. Graduating from high school I had no clue who I wanted to be. Because I had worked on telephone line construction in summers during high school, it was a logical for me to sign on with Saskatchewan Telephones, as a pole climber. After that, it was not much of a stretch to go from pole climber to pipe-liner. Working poles or pipes were both of a similar culture, that being lots of guys, lots of beers, lots of hotels or workcamps.

During high school, the only subject I enjoyed was English. So, when my enthusiasm for work camps waned, I registered for university as an English Literature student, and then graduating to become a high school English teacher was a dream come true (at the time)!

And then as a graduate student in Psychology to land a gig as a high school guidance counsellor was really Nietzsche Pietzsche. I thought I had arrived. Thinking I was Smartre than Sartre, upon receiving my master’s degree, I applied and landed the job of a sessional lecturer in Psychology at our local university. On my academic cake, this icing was sweet and thick and delicious!

Yes. All these mentioned labor and academic jobs were jobs what the world was telling me to do. I chose them because they were the most convenient, the most practical, and as I was raising children, the most pragmatic choices for the times. All these jobs I quite liked, and no matter the politics and accountability, they were easy to tolerate. Hmmm. Reading CARL JUNG and reflecting on this, they were fun until they weren’t.  

CARL JUNG also stated, “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are.”

Of all the jobs I ever worked, there was always the one that I really loved and thought lots about. That was when I was a swimming instructor. I became a credentialed swimming instructor while attending university. Being listed as an English major with a Physical Education minor, swimming became a significant part of my program. I took Swimming 110 (Learning to Swim), Swimming 210 (Bronze Medallion), and Swimming 310 (Swimming Instructor), and during which times I also took my Award of Merit, and my Scuba Bronze Medallion). I also joined the university dive team. Swimming, swimming, and more swimming.  I loved it became an all-year-round swimming instructor, employed part-time at the YMCA.

But because I could not make enough money to raise a family the way I wanted to on a swimming salary, I still toiled in academia. It is only as of late, and not-so-strangely at 73 years of age, I have given myself a second chance to closely replicate those past years of being a swimming instructor. The past couple of winters I have been employed as a part-time ski instructor.

In skiing there is a saying: Where you are is where it’s at. I am not in the mountains but skiing at the MISSION RIDGE SKI RESORT, a prairie escarpment in the beautiful Qu’Appelle Valley is the next best thing.

I am still employed full-time, having a continuing contract working with young offenders in the public-school system. I still have my private hypnotherapy practice my in downtown Regina, SK. And though the royalty payments are slow and low, I am still writing and still knowing that my soon-to-be bestseller is just one influential reader away.

This is where I’m at and this is who I really am – a 73-year-old adolescent!

(Hmmm. Perhaps a 73-year-old emerging adult would be the better psychological comparison!)

MY ST. PADDY'S DAY GIG AT THE BUSHWAKKER BREWPUB

*Tomorrow is the first day of Spring -- the start of the outdoor BUSKING for 2025!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Donald ...

 

Dear Donald,

From the beaches of Normandy to the mountains of the Korean peninsula, from the fields of Flanders to the streets of Kandahar, we have fought and died alongside you during your darkest hours. We were always there, standing with you.

During the Iran hostage crisis, when a group of Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage, six American diplomats escaped and sought refuge at the Canadian embassy, leading to a joint CIA-Canadian operation known as the Canadian Caper to smuggle them out of Iran using Canadian passports and a film crew cover story. 

During the summer of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged your great city of New Orleans, or mere weeks ago when we sent water bombers to tackle the wildfires in California, we were there for you.

During the day, the world stood still, September 11, 2001, when we provided refuge to stranded passengers and planes. We were always there, standing with you, grieving with you.

Together, we have built the most successful economic, military and security partnership the world has ever seen. A relationship that has been the envy of the world.

As President John F. Kennedy said many years ago, Geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends; economics has made us partners and necessity has made us allies.

Donald, if you want to usher in a new golden age for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada, not to punish us.

Yours truly,

Neil

P.S. These are not my words – these are the last words to you (in summary) from my Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

P.P.S. These are my words: I love your Kentucky Bourbon, but I’ll not drink another dram of it until you have been tossed from office.

 

FAMILIAR STRANGERS: THE STRANGE CASE OF DONALD TRUMP AND JUSTIN TRUDEAU

 

FAMILIAR STRANGERS AT THE SKI RESORT

Most of us notice the same people who regularly ski at the same mountain, wait at the same bus stop, regularly shop in the same marketplace, or regularly work out in the same gym as us. Most of us recognize other people in our routines that we frequently notice on a regular basis but with whom we do not interact. Psychologist Stanley Milgram, in 1970, coined such persons as “familiar strangers.”   

During my daily routines, I am very cognizant of many familiar strangers. In the mornings in my building I share the same passenger elevator with familiar strangers. During my regular afternoon gym time, I share the same exercise pumping iron space with three or four familiar strangers. And in the evenings when I go for a London Fog at the Tim Hortons just down the street from where I live, there are always a few familiar strangers pounding down their Timmy grounds. All these familiar strangers I’ve mentioned, though closer than complete strangers, do not yet rise to the level of being an acquaintance.

Reflecting, familiar strangers have always been part of my occupied public spaces. In grade school, high school, and university, there were other students in class who I recognized, but with whom I never conversed. Specifically, I can recall Sharon and David and Gale, with whom I went all through grade school and high school, and yet, ashamedly, do not recall ever chatting with any of them.

When I was a pipeline grunt for several years working the lines in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and in the North West Territories, there were crew mates who I recognized but never spoke with. Sometimes we even stayed in the same isolated work camps, with nary a word between us.

When I was a high school English teacher, professionally I was close to the other English teachers, but rarely spoke to teachers from any of the other departments, save for the Physical Education Department -- I was a long-distance runner and swimmer and so shared the same locker rooms. When I was on faculty at the University of Regina, I would bump into a few of the other Psychology profs, but rarely spoke to any of them. (I think this was because I was a sessional instructor, and not positioned high on academic strata compared to that of a tenured professor.)

When my kids were young and taking them to soccer and swimming and wherever, lots of like-minded parents carting their kids to the same spaces became familiar strangers. On the pitch or in the pool, there were parents, including moi, clapping and chatting, but never any real conversations beyond the immediate event.

Familiar strangers. They are everywhere. They are at Open Mic Night at my favorite downtown pub, The Cure. Familiar strangers are some of my passer-by consumers when I am out and about guitar busking. Having a photographic memory for people and events, I know that for me, having these familiar strangers alongside me does make life, not-so-strangely, comforting.

Oftentimes familiar strangers do happen to connect with one another. When the intimacy becomes more than just a nod-and-hello, when the phatic quite-the-weather-we’re-having chat becomes the more inquisitive what-do-you-do-for-a-living chat, the needle begins to move from stranger toward friend on the stranger-to-lover continuum.

The American band, the Hollies, sang about this very phenomenon:

“Every mornin’ I would see her waiting at the stop

Sometimes she’d shopped and show me what she bought …

That’s the way the whole thing started

Silly but it’s true

Thinkin’ of a sweet romance

Beginning in a queue” (Bus Stop, 1966).

 

There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet (Irish poet, William Butler Yeats).

Yes, it can happen. Perfect strangers can become familiar strangers, familiar strangers can become friends, and friends can become lovers. And it could happen, too, that a familiar stranger, who happens to be a picayune president, who has a legion-like following of toady disciples, and who has decided to reduce friendship to a transactional relationship, could potentially cause an international trade warfare of sorts.

Now’s the time for true confessions -- the real purpose of this blog post. This blog entry I have written as a respond to the slurs and scatology coming from the mouth of a boorish president who is known for his egregious behaviors.

Factoid: My grandmother was an American. She was Kentucky born and raised and she, along with her family, crossed the Missouri River from Kansas City, Kansas, to Kansas City, Missouri in a covered wagon. That was then, this is now. At present, I have two uncles residing in California, and their children and grandchildren are all Americans, and just like my grandmother, born and raised in the good ol’ USA. Even with such American family connections, nowadays nobody in my Canadian family will travel back to America, at least not until Trump has left office.

This is too bad, too sad, considering that we have been regular vacationers to south of the border for years! Here are just a few of my cherished spots in America:

SKI MAP, ALTA, UTAH

RIALTO BEACH, WASHINGTON

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIA

SAN DIEGO BEACH, CALIFORNIA

Relations between the USA and Canada are getting grim. Canadians are now boycotting American booze (my Kentucky bourbon has been pulled off our Canadian shelves), Canadian snowbirds are canceling plans for their next-winter-vacay in the sunny climes of Florida and Arizona. All my group-think friends and neighbors are not buying anything stamped Made in America. USA and Canada. Very familiar strangers, and now we are even booing the Star-Spangled Banner at sports events, especially hockey as of late,

CANADA- USA FINAL 4-NATION HOCKEY TOURNAMENT

I shall close this strange case of Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau with a bit of agitprop.

“Let me be perfectly clear” (as I channel formerly disgraced president, Richard Nixon, who now looks not-that-bad when compared to Donald Trump):

WE ARE NOT BOOING YOUR PLAYERS – WE ARE BOOING YOUR PRESIDENT! 

 

 

 

 

   

 

IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING, ANY ROAD WILL TAKE YOU THERE

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” I love this oft-cited but not-quite accurate quotation of Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland! I love it because I believe that none of us really know where we are going, and none of us really know where we came from.

On the grandest of scales, we are continuously questioning the origin and fate of our universe, where we are from and where we are going. This has been a continuous search, both scientifically and philosophically.  

Factoid: For such answers, there are several theories, of which I shall enhance by shamelessly promoting my latest book, of which the adverts by happenchance perfectly fit my talking points!

WILL MY BOOK SALES EXPLODE INTO OTHER GALAXIES?

Regarding the origin of the universe, the mainly accepted theory by most in the science community, is the Big Bang Theory. This theory purports that 13.8 billion years ago the universe was simply one hot and dense point that exploded, creating space, time, matter, energy, and everything else we know today.

The end of our universe is explained in a couple of scientific theories. The Big Rip Theory suggests, that as our universe is ever expanding, as the galaxies become farther and farther apart, eventually the gravitational forces that bind everything (galaxies, stars, planet, atoms) will succumb to the overpowering influence of dark energy, disappearing forever into time.

The Big Freeze Theory, similar to the Big Rip Theory, too, suggests that as our universe is ever expanding, as the galaxies and stars and planets and atoms drift apart, everything growing colder and becoming more barren, eventually disappearing into on cold and dark void.

Both these theories predict rather bleak endings, and the notion that no matter what space/s we humans are inhabiting, there will be no escape some billion years hence. Hmmm. Maybe humans are not the center of the universe, but enough of this.

Let us move onto our human consciousnesses.

The One Consciousness Theory suggests that our human reality is a projection of our consciousness, and that our 3D world and everything in it, including ourselves, is but a reflection or emanation of our minds.

Theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein, had the theory that every human being is a part of the whole universe, but our part being limited in time and space. Being rather narcissistic, we humans tend to experience ourselves as being separated from all this, suffering a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, proposed that our human brains are essentially computers, and that our consciousnesses are quite like a computer program.

Philosopher David Chalmers has a theory of consciousness that everything is the result of basic properties and laws, and therefore everything is compatible with existing theories of physical science. If this is true, then there is nothing transcendent about consciousness – it is just another natural phenomenon. Neuroscientist, Anil Seth, has a theory of consciousness that all our perceptions are controlled hallucinations, which are generated by our predictive brains – channeling Plato? One of my favorite psychologists, Carl Jung, believed in a collective unconscious, where all the structures of the unconscious mind were shared amongst all of humanity.

Of course, as the scientific search to understand the origin of the universe without continues, so does the search continue to find ourselves within, to find our fate, and along the way, find meaning in our individual lives. In so doing, a reckoning of our human consciousness, too, has a myriad of theories.

One piece of Quantum Theory insists that humans can be immortal because our consciousness never dies. Instead, whenever we die in one universe, our consciousness gets transferred to a parallel universe, one where we are still alive! This is just another Theory of Immortality, dictating that our consciousness is transcendent, and accordingly then, we lead a never-ending existence, regardless of whether our body withers or dies.

So, our consciousness is transcendent? Hmmm. Entire religions are betting their offertory on it, having been constructed around religious theories of the afterlife.

WILL I STILL BE PROMOTING MY BOOK IN THE AFTERLIFE?

Christianity and Islam and Buddhism all promise special places to go after death. In Christianity after death believers go to heaven where they reside with God as their neighbor, and where they are reunited with their earthly bodies, and their earthly loved ones (at least with those who made it heaven). In Islam after death, the soul goes to the unseen realm of Barzakh until the Day of Judgement. In Buddhism, death is an opportunity for liberation, where the consciousness leaves the dead body, but continues and is reborn into another body.

Yes. Our religions do promise us eternity. All cockamamy stories? Maybe. Maybe not.

Whatever the case, I am especially interested in that of Buddhism, where the idea of reincarnation seems quite in harmony to my offerings of PAST LIFE REGRESSION to clients in my HYPNOTHERAPY private practice.

Reincarnation is to be reborn into a new body or vessel, still containing some essence of the previous life experiences and identity. Past Life Regression, a coddewonple so to speak, is more or less traveling in a purposeful manner to a rather vague destination. During a session of a Past Life Regression, my clients believe that their consciousness travels back to a past life, essentially accessing and experiencing memories from their present incarnation, that very incarnation which is in hypnotic trance in my office. In all cases, my clients, in their hypnotic trances, believe that their consciousness is actively engaged during these Past Life Regression sessions, rather than simply observing a detached memory thereof. Compared to that past lifetime in which they lived and died, their session time in my office is very fugacious.

ALL OF THIS, I find fascinating!

Yes. We don’t know where we’re going and we don’t know where we’re from, but one thing is for certain:

“IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING, 

YOU MIGHT WIND UP SOMEPLACE ELSE!”

(Yogi Berra).

WHERE I AM DESTINED TO BE -- BLACK BEACH!

2025: ANOTHER YEAR OF REGRET AND RESOLVE

 

It is time for my 2025 resolutions, resulting mainly from my regrets for 2024. Yes. Regrets, I’ve had a few but then again, too few to mention. Yes. Regrets, referring to Ol’ Blue Eyes, I’ve had a few, of which I will mention later.

As I am typing this, I am looking out my window in the surfin’ village of Sayulita, Mexico. Just a five-minute walk from my Airbnb, and I will be on a beach amongst at least 100 surfers. SURFIN’ USA (THE BEACHBOYS)

and SURFSIDE 6 (TROY DONAHUE)

are ever on my mind when I’m down on Sayulita beach.

Staying here for a few days during Christmastime, I have snorkeled the force majeure of the big waves at Banderas Bay – not recommended!

And I have even managed a game of chess with a living-statue chess master!

What I did not do and regret not doing is sketching some pencil portraits along the Puerto Vallarta Malecon.

Hmmm. And I am not sure why I did not! After all, I have done portraits in Ireland.

I have done portraits in The Netherlands.

I have done portraits in Morocco.

And I have done pooch portraits too!

Yes. I REGRET not drawing portraits in Mexico. So, for 2025, be it near a Mexican malecon or a British Columbia boardwalk, I RESOLVE to do pencil portraits in a bigger way than in 2024 and all the years before.

Knowing full well that I can become the person I resolve to be, when I fly back to Sayulita, between palavers of my portrait busking, I also RESOLVE to learn how to surf! And this shall be my New Year quiddity, sketchin’ and surfin’!  

(YES. IT BECKONS.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!