MAY 31ST: STILL STANDIN' TALL!

SELF-PORTRAIT

Birthdays are ubiquitous, and this Friday, May 31^st will mark just another narcissistic excuse to surround myself with family and maybe a couple of close friends to celebrate my birthday. But at long last, I finally know not to celebrate too loud, because the attention is undeserved. Being on public display when I have accomplished something is fun -- garnering attention just because 73 years ago this last day in May I was born to die, is certainly not worthy of public applause!

May 31^st marks the beginning of my life on Earth. Expressing this, I do not mean to exclude any humanoids having past lives elsewhere, or any Martians or other extra-terrestrials who happen to be reading this blog entry! (Everyone, please note that for literary style and clarity, I shall consider “birthday” and “birthday celebration” to be synonymous whenever mentioned in this essay.)

May 31^st is an acknowledgement that I am still hale and hardy and still standing! Factoid: A significant number of my peers, with whom I have been very close over the years, are not doing so hot. Fortunately, I am still weightlifting and long-distance running and hiking and downhill skiing and practicing martial arts.

May 31^st seems a fitting time for reflection (regarding my self-improvement) and introspection (regarding my self-understanding).

Reflection: I have certainly cavernous space in my behavior for self-improvement, though just maintaining my personal status quo seems a constant struggle. Even so, if given the opportunity for a life rescript, I would probably pass. Currently, I am clinging to the notion that “It’s never too late to be what you might have been” (George Elliot).  Birthdays beget change, and I’ve still lots of time to become what I might have been – a WRITER!

Introspection: Each year brings more philosophical insight about my being, and my being here is certainly no fault of my own. Birthdays beget change, but for me at my age, birthdays also beget existential dread. YES, I am delighted to exist, but NO, I do not know where I am from, nor where I am going.

Factoid: Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this coming Friday are a few of my birthday bros who, too, had no say in the matter. Another factoid: All these men on parade know of one another, but nary a one knows of me. The only time I will ever appear alongside any of these guys, is when I am the author!

This Friday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to CLINT EASTWOOD 93 years old, 6’4”. Loved you as Rowdy in RAWHIDE but BRONCO BILLY is still my favorite Clint movie.

 

This Friday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to JOE NAMATH, 80 years old, 6’2”.

BROADWAY JOE! You and your white cleats!

This Friday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to TOM BERENGER 74 years old, 5’11”.

Thomas Beckett was is the toughest character in any movie I have seen. He was great in EDDY AND THE CRUISERS, but in that SNIPER movie?! Wow!

This Friday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to COLIN FARRELL, 47 years old, 5’10”.

John Sugar is the most baronial and coolest private eye since Efrem Zimbalist Jr. in 77 Sunset Strip. I must retract: John Sugar was the coolest, until he turned out to be an alien! Ouch!

YES. I know these birthday bros I have listed are perceived tough guys. Yes. I know their lives and my life are incommensurable. Yes. I know that bracketing these men with me in my blog entry today and comparing our physical statures was rather madcap.

But coming this Friday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO INSECURE ME, 73 years old, 6’1”.

Seventy-three years ago this last day in May, I was born to die. Not as of late, have I decided to become immortal. So far so good!

MADCAP INDEED!

 

ESSENTIALS FOR THE QUINTESSENTIAL GUITAR BUSKER

 

SUMMERTIME BUSKING THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO

‘Tis summertime and my prime season for guitar busking. And for any other wannabe street minstrel, if your mission this summer is to be a solitary busker strumming guitar on street corners, then keep reading!

WINTERTIME BUSKING AT VALUE VILLAGE, REGINA SK

Busking is an art; busking is a science. The art of busking demands theater and stagecraft; the science of busking demands space and efficiency. To accommodate both the art and science of busking, based upon my personal empirical evidence, I shall comment on the essential elements for you to become the quintessential guitar busker.    

• YOUR PROFICIENCY

Your proficiency with your up-and-down guitar strums is in direct alignment to your self-confidence. The higher the proficiency, the higher the confidence. And the higher the confidence, the better the busker.

To be a successful busker, you need a fingering mastery of musicianship. You must be perceived as being able to play your guitar with a high degree of efficiency to be recognized as a quintessential busker. You must be able to strum with facile. Whether you are thrumming cowboy chords or fingerpicking complicated frailings, you must learn to play with proficiency, at least all the songs you have chosen for your playlist.

Factoid: Faux buskers with neither the vocal chops nor the finger savvies are just beggars with guitars. Allow me right now to decry those tyros who blemish and blot and stigmatize the real guitar buskers!

• YOUR PLAYLIST

Your playlist. For what it is worth, I play only original songs. And I play only original songs for good reasons. First, nobody can compare my songs to any other songs. Nobody can criticize my covers because my songs are never cover songs. My second reason for delivering only originals is that I can busk it and improvise, strumming off-the-cuff at random and anytime I want during any of my songs. I can do this because who is going to know? Nobody knows my songs but me.

Regarding the number of songs on your playlist, twenty is suffice. Once you are through thrumming your twenty songs, it is time to move on to another buskspot, and begin again. I like changing buskspots every hour. In municipalities where busking is regulated, there is usually a two-hour maximum stay at any station. Where busking is not regulated, you will cross paths with those beggars with guitars, who will literally keep the same spot all day long, or until the vendor shoos them away. (They will certainly not vacate upon a fellow busker’s request.)

Factoid: Your playlist ought to be out of sight and in your mind, not on a music stand. Keep it short, yet stretchable. Keep it cheery. Keep it whippy.

• YOUR APPAREL

You garb is important for guitar busking. Unless you are a virtuoso on your instrument, it is probably not good if people are staring at what you are wearing. Glam threads are typically reserved for the other types of buskers, jugglers, and mime artists et al.

Cap-a-pie, my signature go-to is a long-sleeved, crisp white shirt with a collar, faded blue jeans, and either work boots or sandals. Rarely do I wear a hat, and ofttimes I don sunglasses. The long-sleeved shirts and blue jeans and sunglasses are strictly for my sun protection. In years of yore, I was a swimming instructor at outdoor pools for a couple decades, which no doubt contributed to my developing skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma) in my later years. I am cancer free now, but I mainly strum in the shadows whenever I am guitar busking.

STILL LOVIN' OUTDOOR POOLS

Factoid: Dress matters. Comfort trumps costume when guitar busking. Busking, I dress as a ‘60s Bobby Dylan wannabe.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BUSK

• YOUR BUSKSPOT

Proficiency and garb are of no concern if you have no customers. When busking, location is everything. Busking is best when you secure a space packed with consumer traffic. Anywhere on a busy sidewalk, somewhere near a mall entry, any spot in a public park; these are the places I choose to go busking.

BUSKING THE CATHEDRAL ARTS FESTIVAL CIRCA 2012

In my home city, I busk mainly at two venues, the Value Village Mall, or the Shoppers Drug Mart situated just two blocks from my residence. Sometimes I strum at the local farmer’s market, but there I am charged a ten-dollar busking fee.

SELF AND AMANDA AT THE FARMER'S MARKET CIRCA 2016

When I am outside my home city, I usually pick the most popular public square for my buskspot. The Temple Bar in Dublin, the Dam in Amsterdam, and the Jemma el-Finaa in Marrakech are some of the places of where passers-by have tossed money into my empty guitar case.

Factoid: Location, location, location! The more pedestrian traffic, the more coin in your case! Setting up where you have a captive audience, for example movie theatre line-ups or outdoor bar patios are just plain intrusive. Being intrusive is bush-league and boorish!

                                                BUSKING IN DUBLIN (THE TEMPLE BAR) 2014

BUSKING IN AMSTERDAM (THE DAM) 2014 

                                                           

BUSKING IN MARRAKECH (JEMAA EL-FNAA) 2017

• YOUR SETUP

Clean and crisp is my motto. I do remember ponderous days, lugging my gear up and down the blocks, buskspot to buskspot. As a neophyte, in my setup I would have song sheets pinned to my music stands. My busking cheat sheets were not the answer, for they were forever blowin’ in the wind back in those days. These days I slip to and fro in stealth fashion. I pack only myself and my guitar and my harp (I do not own a dirty red bandana). Some days I have my PSYCHOLOGYBUSKING A LA WORDSWORDS cardboard sign as a sort of shibboleth in my guitar case, even though to date after hundreds of busks, only one person has ever inquired about its meaning.

Force of habit, I always set my guitar case down on the sidewalk, adjacent to my right-hand side. I do not really know why, except that is the overall look that I like to present. My consumers are simply those people just passing by, with nary a stop even when they toss their coins into my guitar case. My guitar case is always directly in my vision. This is my strategy to deter coin and bill thieves. So far so good.

Factoid: I personally know a busker who left his guitar, never mind his guitar case, unattended while he dipped into the Value Village Mall to buy a soft drink. On his return, all was gone. I have had people, mostly panners, stand and stare into my guitar case. When this happens, I offer them some coins for their coffee, for which they usually take and retreat. However, if they stay put, then I retreat. Every stranger is a wild card. My many years of martial arts training have taught me one thing for certain: A fight over some coin in a guitar case is never worth the cost of losing an eye or (yikes) my life!

• YOUR BEHAVIOUR

I am a martinet regarding behavior. Keep in mind that everybody near is a potential consumer. Give every passer-by a short glance and a smile. For serious kick-back you must be in kick back mode. Be serious about your craft but do ply your craft without seeming officious. Unsmiling buskers offer no joy to the world. No trifling here. Customer etiquette is everything. And when someone contributes to your cause, be sure to state clearly, a sincere THANK YOU.

Factoid: If you adhere to some of my sophic and manic busking suggestions, then you are on the road to become the quintessential busker you are longing to be. On that road that I love in my alterity, I often refer to myself as the planetary busker -- and in this blog entry I have posted some pics to prove my creds for being so.  

And to close, from a psychology perspective, ALL the above-mentioned essentials are bracketed as behaviors, and so remember ...

Busking is a privilege, so behave accordingly!

EXISTENTIAL DREAD AND EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: MY NOT-SO-SECRET IDENTITIES

HIKING WAKAMOW VALLEY, SASKATCHEWAN

"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts."

(WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S “As You Like It”)

Throughout my adult years I have auditioned for a potpourri of roles on the real-world stage. Toiling on pipelines, I tramped through Manitoba and Saskatchewan grasslands, Alberta foothills, British Columbia forests, and North West Territories tundra. Busking on street corners, I strummed my tunes and drew my pencil portraits in Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Morocco. And betwixt these pipelines and busks, I was a swimming instructor, a high school English teacher, and a university psychology professor.

During my lifetime to date, the fates have been exceedingly kind. Nowadays I am a professional hypnotherapist, a ski instructor, and a writer. My hypnotherapy practice is thriving, I have been offered employment at my local ski hill, and my last book, QUEST FOR BLACK BEACH, has been nominated for the ARLENE BARLIN AWARD.

‘Tis now in the autumn of my life I have come to really realize that my time left to strut on the world stage is definitely finite. In anecdotal fashion, it seems I am attending age-old friends’ funerals much more frequent than in years past. Until now, I have been delusional, thinking I have had infinite time to accomplish anything and everything, with nary of thought on my exit stage left. Like the last of my vampire friends told me, “Without death, nothing is urgent.”

FACTOID: Whether I win the ARLENE BARLIN AWARD, my immediate plan is to be a full-time professional writer. To put into play, I need to write and write and write and write and write and write to make it work -- pun intended! As far back as high school I have dreamed to be a writer, but fear and common sense have kept my writing as a vocation rather than an occupation.

I shall explain. I live a blend of existentialism and evolutionary psychology. I have the free will to determine the course of my life (existentialism), and my sole purpose for being is to procreate and continue my species (evolutionary psychology). Exercising my free will, I have chosen a life of middle-class misadventure, surrendering to my innate urge to create more of me. I chose to have children I chose to provide for them a decidedly normative lifestyle. Instead of living the solitary life of a starving artist, I landed jobs as a high school English teacher and part-time university psychology professor. I chose not to write; I chose to teach. Such employment prompted me to keep in academia, significantly enhancing my socioeconomic status throughout my adulthood.

In furtherance thereof, my existential dread is still bringing out the best in me. Starting in my undergraduate university days, I had ofttimes dreamed about being a ski instructor. This past Christmastime I enrolled in a downhill ski instructor course, and now when I don my ski boots I do so as a certified ski instructor. Yes, my existential dread is still bringing out the best in me. Existential dread, in the autumn of my life, has sea-changed my winters.

Alas, my progenies have grown and gone which offers me considerable time to suffer existential dread. Even though I am 73 years old I am still working, moiling daily in my employs. Serving contracts for two provincial ministries, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Corrections, my job is to vet 18-year-old high-risk young offenders, both socially and academically, as they are released from custody and returning to the community. (Each evening I am still at the helm of my private hypnotherapy practice.)

My work keeps death from knocking on my door. It has been well documented that more people die in their retirement years than in their work years. I am just betting on the odds that the longer I stave off retirement, the longer I stave off death.

Even though I am 73 years old, five days a week I am still recreationally sweating in two different gyms, one for weight training, one for martial arts. With regard to my weight training, I am a staunch proponent of the overload system; with regard to my martial arts training, I am a staunch proponent of Muay Thai.

Going to the gym helps me to stay hale and hardy. Going to the gym allows me to continue hiking and diving and busking and skiing. And, maybe even more important, I know I go to the gym to look good!

Hmmm. At 73 years of age, I am still innately manifesting evolutionary psychology. As stated previously, according to evolutionary psychology, my only purpose for being is to propagate and continue the species. To attract a partner to propagate, it helps to look good!

And there you have it, my not-so-secret identity of all work and all play. I go to work to stay alive; I go to the gym to look good. For certain am at once, an aficionado for my work and my play, and thaumaturgy, performing for an audience of me, myself, and I.

EXISTENTIALISM and EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY. 

Life could be a dream ... sh-boom ... but the burden of accountability to oneself can be a bitch .. sh-boom sh-boom! 

TO LIVE IS TO SUFFER (the skinny of Zen).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

SCRIBBLES

SCRIBBLES

MORE SCRIBBLES

A client of mine, who has schizophrenia, handed me, unsolicited, his latest “scribbles.” Yikes. He had drawn these during his episodic drink-and-weed consumption a couple evenings ago. Yikes again. According to my client, these sketches offered up rich symbolism and insight, directed from his “super brain.”

Hmm. As I look at these, I see a creative quality akin to kindergarten art. And to be analytical, in the first drawing I see a checkmark, and a question mark, and a number sign within a light circle of dots. In the second drawing, top left to right, I see, simply, a percentage sign, a filled dot, a plus sign, and some arrows. Middle left to right I see a filled dot, more arrows suspended in a rectangle, and yet another filled dot. From the bottom left to right I see a circle with a plus sign and a scribbled treble clef, and another filled dot. Yes. I see Kindergarten art.  

But my client said he sees his scribbles as significant and meaningful. When I asked him for his interpretations, he said that in the first set of sketches he drew a checkmark, a question mark, and a number sign within a light circle of dots. His interpretation seemed no different than mine. As for his second set of drawings, he confirmed that he drew a percentage sign, a few dots and filled them in, some arrows, and last, a treble clef. Strangely, or maybe not-so-strangely, his interpretation of these drawings seemed no different than mine.

Save for the arrows. He went on and on and on about those arrows, and how he has perfected them. He stated that he draws these oftentimes in his free time, and I know he has plenty of that! His only obligation for the day is his self-mand, to every day at 1:30 walk downtown to the local gym and lift weights for approximately one hour. He has had this routine for close to a decade, and he looks the part. My client has a ripped and shredded body and he is as strong as an ox. My client has been lifting weights daily for over 20 years. My client has followed his exact self-manded regimen for over 20 years.  

Regarding his scribbles, I figured there would be bits of insight revealed by my client in this kind of projective psychology conclave. Being a psych guy, I could have contributed some pseudo- scholastic wit in my interpretations of his sketches. I could have projected some intellectual efflorescence, interpreting the checkmark as the point of his unconscious desire to create a checklist and check items off his to-do list accordingly. I could have easily interpreted his question mark as representing his inquisitive nature, his enquiring mind ever seeking universal truths regarding the universe and his station therein the universe accordingly. And the number sign I could have easily offered that he really knows life is but a game of Xs and Os, and this number sign replicates the grid for the game. The circle of dots is a simple one, representing the never-ending circle of life.  The percentage sign is a reckoning of the odds of being, and the treble clef most certainly symbolizes his eclectic love of any type of music.  I could've rescripted his art, but nope I did not. Nothing to see here, folks – was all there really was for me, and that’s okay by me.

SNOW SCRIBBLES (COURTESY OF "ALAMY") 

Scribbles. Truth be that I like to scribble too.  I like to scribble in the snow with my skis on the slopes. In any serious nonversation (talking to myself vs conversation of talking to someone), my scribbles project nothing.  They are neither symbolic nor insightful. My snow scribbles project only that I LOVE SKIING. Nothing to see here, folks -- save that I am a humble-bragging ski instructor.

SADLY, THIS SKI SEASON FOR ME IS FINIS.

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

THE FELINE OF A FRIEND

Here is my last MISSION for the season (pun intended) - Another ski picture, of course!

LIFTIE PROJECTIONS AT MISSION RIDGE SKI RESORT -- SEE THE SNOW SCULPTURES!

FACTOID: My client's scribbles came on the same day as my last day on the slopes -- the very day Mission Ridge Ski Resort closed for the season. Call it what you will -- I call such coincidences, PHENOMENOLOGY, the psychology of being able to make sense of coincidence! 

My client's scribbles were the nidus I needed to write yet another entry about downhill skiing. And to put scribbles and such into perspective ...

SKIING FIXES EVERYTHING!

  

FOOTNOTES: *BAREFOOT AND *BOOTS

 

I've been a swimmer, a diver, a teacher, a counsellor, a university professor, a hypnotherapist, a buskologist, an author, and now a ski instructor. I started out barefoot and now I am a boot guy. Seriously. 

Soon after my undergrad days I was a swimming/scuba instructor. Swimming or diving in a pool or in a lake or in a river, barefoot is still the norm, but I must confess that boots are my modus operandi. I wear boots all four seasons long. When I walk or run or busk in the rain or shine, thirty degrees above or thirty degrees below, I wear hiking boots. Wintertime, as often as possible, I wear my ski boots.

Factoid: While I am typing this right now, I am wearing my hiking boots!

Today I am writing about how my footwear relates to my life. From my vocations to my avocations, and now from my avocations to my vocations, from the bottom of the lake to the top of the mountain, my footwear has always been symbolic of who I really am.  I shall explain.

This picture atop the words in this blog entry features my bare feet whilst clad with Muay Thai shin guards. Whenever kicking in Muay Thai classes, for safety purposes and according to gym policy, I am obligated to wear my shin guards. Soft-kicking my sparring mates or hard-kicking the heavy bags would certainly take its toll if I were not donning my shin guards. But I digress.

Robert Owens, a lifelong American MMA practitioner, equates martial arts to hiking mountains – I like this guy! Hiking, you can see the top of the mountain. But when you get to the top, you realize you were looking at a false summit, because there you can view an entirely new mountain range!

My current pair of hiking boots pictured above, are SALOMON QUEST ELEMENTS, size 111/2 inches, bought locally at ATMOSPHERE. Purchase price: $249.00 plus tax.

American naturalist, John Muir, insisted that of all the paths we take in life, we sure make sure that some of them are dirt. I cannot remember not hiking in my life. In my early adolescence, my friends and I hiked the coulees and canyons along the creek south of the village of Vanguard, SK. And I have taken my own kids hiking mountain hiking every summer since their early adolescence. Now my kids are in adulthood, and all of us make a point of mountain for a couple weeks every summer. Of all my avocations, hiking brings out the best in me. At every opportunity I am a man on the move! In Henry David Thoreau fashion, the moment my feet begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow! And as I age, existential dread has become a main theme in my conversations. American mountaineer, Finis Mitchell, was spot on when he stated that we don’t stop hiking because we grow old. We grow old because we stop hiking!

Believing this, My self-mand for years has been: DON’T STOP HIKING!

Since the early ‘80s I have always skied with rented gear. When my kids were pre-adolescent and learning how to ski and snowboard, they had their own equipment. Heading to Fernie each year at Christmastime and oft times to Sunshine in springtime, transporting their equipment left no room for mine, and so I rented my ski gear right at the resort. These boots (pictured) are my first ski gear purchase since the early ‘80s! And what a treat they are. I have been skiing just one time so far with my new boots and now I remember what next to flying feels like! My boots are the perfect fit. Vertically standing my big toes just feather the end of the boot, and when I bend my knees in a simulated ski position, my heels go back just allowing my toes to wiggle freely if I choose to do so. Factoid: These days I am at the ski hill twice a week and am still pumped from my night ski just twelve hours ago!

My brand-new ski boots are ATOMIC HAWX PRIME 110 FLEX, size 281/2 mm, bought locally at SUNSHINE & SKI. Purchase price: $639.00 plus tax.

And here is what I know about skiing. Where you are is where it’s at. I love skiing in the mountains, some of my favorite places being Sun Peaks, Silver Star, Big White, and Fernie. Factoids: Sun Peaks is a one-hour drive from Kamloops. Silver Star is a half-hour drive from Vernon. Big White is a one-hour drive from Kelowna. Mount Fernie is a five-minute drive from Fernie. In skiing there is a saying: Where you are is where it’s at. Mission Ridge is not a mountain. Rather, Mission Ridge is a Qu’Appelle Valley escarpment but happens to be only a forty-minute drive from Regina. Yes. 

Where you are is where it’s at!

Whenever I am on the snow my mind is back in time, travelling to my early adulthood days skiing with my cousin, Craig, at every one of the mountains mentioned above. Also, whenever I am on the snow my mind is with my sons, hoping to gather with them and hit those same slopes as many times as possible before springtime.

This I know: A bad day skiing beats a good day at work!

Yes. My feet are me. What I wear is who I am. When I fight on the mat, my feet follow my fists.  When I ski down the mountain, my feet follow the fall line.  When I hike, my feet follow my fancy – wherever the birds chirp the loudest or wherever the vistas are the greatest, is where I go.

Call me fusty, but I know there are no shortcuts, no Annie Oakley tickets, to any place worth going. Nowadays, I am yet again, standing at a fork in the road. With a shout-out to Robert Frost, I shall take the path less-traveled by!

I began at the bottom and I shall finish at the top. I began at the bottom of the lake as barefooted swimming instructor; I shall finish at the top of the mountain as boot-buckled ski instructor.

And as a ski instructor, my goal is to get my clients from the top of 

the mountain to the bottom of the mountain. 

But as a skier, my primary goal is to get in as many runs as

possible before my sun sets!

 

 

  

 

 

 

MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN: GUILTY!

 

SELF-PORTRAIT

Yikes!  Upon reflection, it seems I mostly expend only minimum efforts for the arbitrarily maximum gains at home, at work, and at play. This is in harmony with my utilitarian practice I employ everywhere and always in my life.  Yikes again!

At HOME when it is time to clean my downtown high-rise condominium, for the most part I scrub only what I (and others) can generally see. Rarely do I grab a toothpick and scrape the grime and crud from the almost invisible cracks around the light switches and cupboard handles and faucets. I scrub with hand the bathroom sink, the toilet bowl, and the shower. With broom I sweep my kitchen and balcony, and the front entrance I use the vacuum cleaner. Suffice to say my entire cleaning time is clocked at 30 minutes -- my eighth-floor condo is only 775 square feet!

Hmmm … Such a quick cleaning is good enough for company and good enough to save face. My employing a toothpick for a tool happens only on the most intrinsically motivated “cleanliness-next-to-godliness occasions.

AT WORK I am a proletarian stiff, but in a most qualitative fashion.  Stated simply, I design and deliver only programs that I enjoy. Factoid: ALL the programs I have been contracted to design and deliver with my current employer, are ALL autobiographical.  For example, when I was an all-season long-distance runner, all those clients in my charge (young offenders in a custody facility) had to join me for a minimum run of five miles daily. Within a year of the start date, those same clients not only ran every day, but right after their run, they lifted weights every day -- I was a certified Olympic weight instructor at the time. Also, within a year of the program start date, we hit the swimming pool -- I was a certified swimming instructor at the time. I thoroughly enjoyed this “autobiographical” job for seven years, ending it only when I exited the program.

My current job, again with young offenders, also delivers an “autobiographical” schedule:

Every day with a mini chess tournament – I love playing chess. Following chess, we have group discussions relating to adolescent behaviors as presented in either Psychology or English literature -- I taught psychology at the local university for 23 years, and I taught high school English for five years.

Right after a catered lunch, we partake in a play nine-ball tournament. This lasts usually for an hour, and then we embark on a ten-minute trek to the gym, where we lift weights 30 minutes, then play basketball, or practicing Muay Thai. Factoid: All of the above I love doing, except for basketball.  I am not a basketball player but my colleague, who is university basketball star, still loves the hoops.

My work is my play, keeping my social battery current amongst those marginalized group members in my charge (puns intended every in this sentence)!

Factoid: At my PLAY, I never practice, I only play which suffices for practice times.

Hmmm … EXPENDING MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN seems my motto and excuse for indolence.  I know that PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, or rather PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, but I am truly not a professional player of anything. I do Muay Thai once a week; I play shinny at an outdoor rink once a week; I ski at our local ski resort once a week; I do singer-songwriter gigs at local bars once every four weeks. I like writing and I like hiking.

SOMEWHERE IN THE ROCKIES

And, of course, I like busking, but am never a brutto tempo busker, but always the fair-weather busker on windless days having lots of sun.

LAKE SUPERIOR, ONTARIO

MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN has been a general truth in my lifestyle to date, albeit there have been some exceptions.

When I was striving for my Royal Life and Red Cross swimming instructors, and my National Association of Underwater Instructors scuba certifications, I swam a minimum of one mile every morning, my very maximum effort for the maximum gain.

ANOTHER POOL-ANOTHER SWIM

Before formally running in the Saskatchewan Marathon, for years I recreationally ran a minimum of five miles Monday through Saturday, and ten miles every Sunday. Marathon running never allows for a minimum effort.

For every class in which I registered for Graduate Studies, up to and including defending my master’s thesis, I gave my academic all for a minimum of five hours per week.

This Christmastime past, I set forth my maximum effort for twenty hours on the snow to attain my Canadian Ski Instructor Alliance certification.

All the above rather temerarious exceptions have one thing in common.  To succeed there is no time for foozle! Also, all these exceptions were motivated from within, rather than from without. Factoid:  IF MY ENDEAVORS HAVE INTRINSIC VALUE THEN I OFFER THE MAXIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN -- IF MY ENDEAVORS ARE MOTIVATED BY MONEY I AM BACK TO MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN.

Introspection could suggest that I unwittingly proffered such maximum efforts in these to raise my social status a dram or two or three.

Hmmm … I know that I am the delusional proletarian. I know, too, that having adopted the attitude  

MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN 

has served me very well so far.

 

 

DEATH AND PUPPY COMFORT

These days, DEATH is on my mind. Since the new year, five people that I know have died, three of whom I have known since my boyhood days in Vanguard, Saskatchewan, and the other two, a former student of mine in Regina, Saskatchewan, and my cousin’s husband who has resided in Victoria, British Columbia for the last 50 years. All five expired from natural causes.

Death is inevitable I know, but rarely does it come at me in familiar fives.

VANGUARDIAN, MURRAY (R.I.P)

VANGUARDIAN, JOHNNY (R.I.P.)

VANGUARDIAN, RICHARD (R.I.P.)

In life there is always much ado about death. The pedestrian idioms and euphemisms referring to death are plenty and multifarious: Passed, passed on, passed away, dearly departed, and resting in peace (RIP). And countless others even being comedic: bit the dust, kicked the bucket, met the maker, six feet under, pushing up daisies.

From a planetary perspective, 61 million people died last year. Combine this information with the fact that 134 million babies were born last year, 134 million minus 61 million means a net earth population gain of 73 million people in 2023. Or to factor this another way, 0.91%.

Factoid: In the coming decades it is expected that the number of births will continue to be around 130 to 140 million per year, while during the same time as the world population ages, the annual number of deaths is expected to continue to increase.

Another factoid: As the number of deaths approaches the number of births, the global population growth will end. Surprise, surprise! But enough of these actuaries.

As a kid, my pals and I used to kill. In our early teens we drowned out gophers in the pastures; we stoned frogs along the creek banks. In our later teens armed with .22 bolt-action rifles we shot gophers in the pastures; we shot frogs along the creek banks.

However, a view to a kill of an animal lower on the food chain is significantly different than viewing a human corpse. By presenting this food change comparison, I am certainly not suggesting that we ever killed these gophers and frogs for food. Sadly, we killed them only for sadistic sport. And while I am still ranting on the evolutionary food chain, we Homo sapiens are not the head honchos. Fittingly (Darwinian pun intended), we are surviving between the pigs and the anchovies, well below the top-seated polar bears and orca whales. All of this, true dat, according to the wildlife biologists.

But I digress.

The first dead human I ever laid eyes upon was Shorty, who had been a bartender at the Vanguard Hotel. Shorty was on display at the local funeral home on the main street in Vanguard Call it simple curiosity, but my buddy, Brent, whose family owned the hotel, and I walked into the funeral parlor to have a look. That look-see moment has been etched in my mind now for 60 years. Joe McKenny, Shorty’s drinking buddy, a look-a-like combo of W.C. Fields and Humpty-Dumpty, was duly having “guests” sign the register when they entered the funeral home to view the body. And there he was, Shorty, all five foot two of him stretched out on his back, his Brobdingnagian nose noticeably protruding above the gunwales of his coffin.

Of course, since that first view of human remains, I have seen, literally, hundreds since. Being now in the autumn of my life, deaths around me seem as common as the leaves I see falling from the trees. The five friends I listed in the first paragraph of this essay, are sadly now piles of bones amongst piles of leaves.  

If the skinny of Zen is “To live is to suffer,” then the skinny of Zen must also be “To die is to assuage.” At best, this is just a philosophic puppy comfort.

MY COLLEAGUE'S PUPPY, GEORGE