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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