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