Bob Hunter

@ strictly personal

Sail Away
ale) Mexico

VANDER ZALM being in, I’ve decided to not have any
existential angst until the end of August. That'll proba-
bly be the longest ve gone since puberty. Without
angst, that is.

By existential angst, | mean, of
course, confusion about one’s

“Belief is a very specific
word. It means a decision. Asa
tule it nas nothing to do with
reason or any of that kind of
stuff. When you ‘‘believe’’, you
automatically throw your frontal
lobes into the garbage.

fused, bewildered, goofy, semi-
comatose people out there,

us.

purpose in life. Well, that’s not

the whole story, is it? It’s confu-

sion about LIFE, period.

A lot of people seem to have
life all figured neatly out, the

new Premier Bill among them.
Generally, they

one belief system or another.

I like belief systems, at least as
When | say | ‘‘like’’
them, what I really mean is that
they are amusing, although they
False
security, but, hell, even false se-
curity is better than no security at

an idea.

DO give people security.

all, I guess.

I love it when somebody says
“I know what life is all

to me,
about because

the blank) tells me so." Great, I

always say. That’s wonderful.

But do you have a brai: of your

own?

It’s a stupid question. Ob-
Anybody who'd
believe that another human being
knows the meaning of life is a
dip. My general feeling is that
I know
guru

viously not.

all gurus are frauds.
because I was in the
business once.

Being a guru is easy. All you
have to do is stand up on a soap-
YOU

box and announce that
know the meaning of life.

Depending on how witty you
_are, you might get a big crowd
the first time you open your yap.
there are sO many con-

I mean,

achieve this
beatific state by subscribing to

you're BOUND to get some at-
tention when you announce: ‘']
know the meaning of life."

You'll lose 99 per cent of thein
after five minutes of absurdity
mouthed in public, but all you
need is one per ceat of any crowd
and you've got the makings of a
religion, at least.

Im not just saying this,
brothers and sisters. I KNOW it
to be TRUE. I once started a
religion. It was for fun and prof-
it, of course.

It was a snap. You invent a
name and phone Victoria.

There’s something called the
Societies Act in British Colum-
bia. Under it, you can set up
almost anything you want, pro-
viding you don’t advocate the vi-
olent overthrow of the gov-
ernment.

I based my little church on the
totally unprovable and probably
insane idea that Planet Earth
itself is a conscious entity, a kind
of cuper being, prohably a regis-
tered god in the hierarchy .of
things spiritual.

No one has yet proved to me
that this iSN’T the case. But
that’s not the reason I gave the
church up and got out of the
religion business and went back
to journalism,

The fata! ‘law with belief
systems, no matter how wiggy, is
that, sooner or later, you're go-
ing to get some lazy mental case
who BELIEVES.

ee

you either ‘‘know"*
be true by some kind of process
of verification, or you DON'T
know.

It seems to me that, in reality,
something to

“‘Belief’’ is about as intellectu-

al as urinating, which puts it just
a notch above patriotism, which |
equate with Athlete’s Foot of the
mind.

I got out of the amateur guru

business for the sound reason
that I started running into people
who didn’t understand that it was
a game being played for fun.
They actually behaved as if they
believed that what I was saying
was some kind of truth,

My motto is ‘‘quit while you’re

behind.”? That’s what I did.

So all this is a roundabout way

of saving that I have trouble
treating people who are heavily
into one
another as serious persons.

religious dogma or

I take my own wonderings

about the purpose of the universe
with many grains of salt.
is: Who am 1?

That

The fact that we are now ruled

in B.C. by a guy who wears his
Christian belief system on_ his
sleeve, as
automatically somehow superior
to other
leaves me questioning whether |
can hang
without experiencing SOME ex-
istential angst,
about challenges!

though it were
nutty belief systems,
in until September

[Htell you. Talk

Streetcar gets new home

STREETCAR #153, referred to by
North Vancouver Ald. Stella Jo
Dean as ‘‘a bit of history,’’ will get
a new permanent home at Mahon
Park Stadium.

City Council approved an $8,000
expenditure Monday to make an
opening in the north wall of the
stadium for the streetcar and to
complete internal modification on
the relic.

Truck Owners

An earlier $5,900 was spent
moving the car from its old loca-
tion at Dominion Bridge.

“1 think this a wonderful way to
Preserve part of the history of
North Vancouver,’’ Dean said
when council had approved the
$5,000.

Ald. Ralph Hall agreed: ‘It’s
going to be a lasting reminder of
B.C. Electric, which provided an

Upgrade to 16” $1059° is

Radials from

Fit most
rear wheel drive
sub. compacts.

excellent service for
free.”’

In a report to council, museum
and archives director Bill Baker
noted that the car was in service in
North Vancouver between 1908
and 1947,

Only one other streetcar in the
province has been saved, he said.

(electric)

Se

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688-1774 or 683-8979

Jewellery Designer

in Lynn Valley next to the Royal Bank
1258 Ross Rd., N. Vancouver

987-1322

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