THE TRIQUETRA OF LIFE: Wisdom, Wealth, and Wellness

A Chapter Twelve Excerpt

Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous

A True Story Of Social Posturing

All the world’s a masquerade, where one man in his time plays many parts, and I had learned how to slip past its stopgates unnoticed.

Living across from Mt. Hood Country Club in Melrose, MA., had its perks—mostly when they threw big, fancy wedding receptions. One summer Saturday, I decided to see if I could crash one.

https://mthoodgolfclub.com/

Dressed in my Sunday best, looking like a “guest,” I strolled in as if I belonged. No hesitation. No glance over my shoulder. Just a calm, confident strut. Turns out, that’s all it took. Nobody questioned me. Nobody even noticed. Dressed right, in the right place, at the right time—I was invisible in plain sight. Clothes really do make the man.[i]

And it was glorious.

I stuffed myself with pastries, sipped the wine, dodged waiters, and scoped out the prettiest girls—imagining myself a smooth operator with global connections, a mysterious imposter. For a couple of hours, I wasn’t a nobody kid, but a famous movie star.

That day, I realized something unsettling: everyone is pretending. At weddings, parties, churches, Congress—probably everywhere. It’s all about playing the part, wearing the mask. And at a masquerade ball? We wear masks over our masks. Clothes, confidence, the way we move, talk, and smile—it’s all a costume. People don’t really see you. They see only what they expect to see.

If blending in was so easy for me, how many others were doing the same? How much of the world was just clever illusion? It felt like peeking behind the curtain at the Wizard of Oz, only to find a gray-beard troll pulling rusty levers. What else wasn’t real? How many things only looked true but weren’t?

Nature did it all the time—Viceroy butterflies copying Monarchs, the mimic octopus shifting shape, chameleons fading into bark. People were no different.

I left that wedding stuffed with cake and insight. Life wasn’t what it seemed. Like my earlier “badge of courage,” it was only another kind of counterfeit—this time not about manhood, but about identity. The world was a masquerade, and I had learned how to slip past its stopgates unnoticed.

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[i] “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, .…” As You Like It, by Shakespeare, Act II, Scene VII.

From the memoir-in-progress, nearing publication:
Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous
—a spiritual epic for truth-seekers, contemplative mystics, and all who long for God.

Visit www.RMDellOrfanoAuthor.com