I have picked up a pattern in my life and it could be something big.

Incident One : Beavers.

During the short time that I was in the Cubs Scouts (Beaver Level, the lowest), I somehow ended up giving a speech to a group of adults.

That’s all I remember,. I don’t recall how this bizarre thing ended up happening to me. It seemed normal and natural to me at the time.

Put a pin in that, for we will be coming back to it again.

I haven’t the foggiest idea what the hell I had to say. I don’t even remember the topic. The whole thing’s a blur to me and I don’t think it’s entirely due to how young I was at the time it happened.

I think that it was the first time I ever entered into this strange “zone” I get into when I am on stage. Everything else kind of falls away and it’s just me and the audience and a lot of instincts I don’t experience anywhere else.

And by far, the weirdest part of this zone is that I almost never retain any conscious memory of what I did while performing. It’s like it happened in someone else’s dream.

And I think that’s why I have so little memory of it.

But I do remember one thing.

I got a HUGE around of applause. My audience loved me.

And that wouldn’t be the last time that happened.

Incidient 2 : UPEI plus D&D

Again, I do not recall exactly how I ended up in this situation. I know I was hanging out at the UPEI campus and somehow the idea of playing D&D came up and then the next thing I knew, I was volunteering to be the DM for a group of people I did not know.

I had no plans. No campaign. No idea what the fuck I was doing. I improvised the whole thing. And that seemed perfectly normal to me at the time.

Told you we’d come back to that.

And of course, I have no frigging idea what I actually came up with It’s a total blank. I have a very tenuous memory of something to do with a magical top-hatted figure and that’s about it.

But you know what I do remember?

My audience – none of whom knew me – absolutely loved it. In fact, they loved it so much that they gave me a standing ovation at the end.

And again, this all seemed normal and natural to me. I wasn’t expecting a standing O, but it didn’t strike me as a particularly noteworth event.

And that is so weird to me now. Most people can’t do that. I completely improvised an entire evening’s worth of D&D and the audience went crazy for it.

That’s like…. a big deal. One might even say it’s pretty damned impressive. I have to wonder why the hell it didn’t make more of an impression on me.

And I don’t have a workable answer for that. All I can come up with is that I had a very happy-go-lucky, tale things as they come personality back then and while that certainly helped a lot in dealing with college life and its stressors, the downside was that nothing made a very strong impression on me for very long.

I just kepts rolling on, like a river, no matter what.

One more major incident :

Incident 3 : Medical History

At some point in the early 2000’s, my GP at the time, Doctor Robinson, told me about a teaching event at which I could volunteer. It was an event to teach medical students and fresh interns how to take someone’s medical history.

And that’s a super important skill. The better you are at it, the better the information you base your diagnosis upon will be, and ergo the better your results will be.

Yes, medical nerds, you will have to develop people skills in order to be a good doctor.

Anyhow, there was a small payment involved (small enough to be called an “honorarium”) and that plus curiosity got me to go there.

After having my first bracing experience threading my way through various UBC building to find the medical student one, I showed up and was led to a room with around twenty bright young things waiting to take turns taking my medical history.

And it was a lot of fun. Once more, I went into this “mode” and was charming and engaging and quite thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

And so did they, so much so that when the time was up, they were sad to see me go. Somehow, without even trying, I had made these people love me.

And here’s the kicker : they liked me so much that the next time I see Doctor Robinson, he repeatedly tells me that I made a very strong impression on those people and they would like to have me back.

He mentioned it a few times after that, too. I didn’t know what to say at the time. Have me back for what?

Again, I made a huge impression on an audience and treated it like it was no big thing.

But it was a big thing. And there are other incidents, like times when I have given a presentation at school and got huge applause, and times I was an actor in theater and people loved it, and the times I hosted trivia at VCON, and the list goes on and on.

And looking at it all now, I am beginning to think that maybe writing is not my most important skill. That I have some kind of natural gift for connecting with an audience and making them fall in love with me.

And that seems like the sort of thing that can make someone rich and famous.

How? Standup comedy would seem to be the obvious choice. I’m funny AND I am apparently catnip for audiences, so what else would I do?

Actually, what I want to do is have a life like my hero Quentin Crisp. After writing his hilarious and lovely books, he made his living as a public speaker. All he had to do was show up, amuse the audience with some anecdotes and observations, and then answer questions from the audience.

And that’s the life for me, my friend. It sounds absolutely marvelous to me. It would barely seem like work at all. All in all, it’s like the perfect lifestyle for me.

And it sounds way easier than being a comedian.

So I have a lot to think about now. It might be that I have been pursuing the wrong skill set all these years of trying to be a writer.

Maybe I should be putting myself in front of an audience and doing what comes naturally to me.

Maybe my true calling is public speakling.

It sure sounds a lot easier than writing!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.