Helpfulness-ness

I had the chance this morning to help a bewildered visitor to Melbourne town who was trying to get to RMIT from the corner of Elizabeth and Collins. Now for all the non Melbournites out there, this kind of direction is quite simplistic and helped me feel good about myself for the next hundred meters or so till I started dodging trams jaywalking on Bourke St.


The man, of unknown overseas origin, wandered on his way happily hoping that he was one step closer to his destination than he had been when standing on our meeting corner. And I can't recommend enough that you ensure these tourists, visitors, new residents, interlopers or otherwise time travellers do get the assistance that they are asking for.

It may be a little far to run ahead of him and drop bread crumbs or pay a skywriter to lead them towards there intended goal but it does give you a good kick to make people feel a little better.
Now, I know you can all see this as self congratulatory but this should lead to an obvious conclusion.

People need to help people out.

Well, I don't think that was that much of a revelation but maybe, just maybe if you're feeling a little down you should go out and find someone who is incompetently trying to parallel park their scooter and assist them (without appearing to actually steal the scooter).

Heck, this should be naturally for everyone to assist any stranger, who happens to walk by, across a pedestrian crossing regardless if they want to cross or not. Why not wait half an hour to merge onto a freeway letting everyone else past first, you'll feel 189.3% better than you had earlier in the day(figure not yet proven)

But lastly, if you want to truly help someone else. Maybe you should let them help you. If you notice a friend or colleague feeling a little glum then what better way to make them feel better than to go out there and injure yourself(only to a slight degree, no point killing yourself) so that they can give you the kiss of life, tourniquet up your acute angled knee and feel for a good two days on top of the world.

Well, that's all from me for this post.
I think it's time I went and helped some people out.
Maybe just a twisted ankle this time, broken bones just take too long to heal.

Inspirational Purgatory

So I have been sitting here looking at the many pieces on Mister Fine thinking about a piece or two to post in my mind and nothing seems to be gelling. Despite years of cynicism, coffee, bad travel experiences and other such stuff there seems to be no rhyme or reason why I can’t put down fifteen paragraphs or so without sobbing quietly into my pillow at the third and declaring that whatever talent I had is all over and it will never come back.

I can’t seem to shake this sense of foreboding that after working on the full 32 posts (and one dodgy mobile phone photo) that I can’t seem to get the ideas in my head down on paper. And the ideas seem to be there, from inspirational school television influences, crazy american familys with hot air balloons to the excitement of not paying a cent extra for public transport for the next 2 years (the last one apparently was enough to pay for more ticket inspectors.) but the issue seems to be that I get to a good point, then I lose the moment and stop...right...about...now……..



….so the question is that, while wallowing in a mire of inspirational deficient mud, I should be able to step forward and get enough momentum to move on.


And at this point I want to kick start my muse like a motor scooter without the use of hard or soft drugs. Without resorting the methods such as extreme antarctic polo(with seals) or running off to an ancient emo temple to wear lots of black and talk to no one. I need to get the movement going again with a cheap and practical muse for hire, especially if I want to keep Mister Fine moving at some pace.


And I don't seem to be the only one. I know numerous blogs that start out so well with the updates occuring in such a regimented fashion that the Army feels out of step before tailing off with posts occurring yearly, like the school journals of old.


So my real question to everyone, and it has only taken five paragraphs to get to a point, is on the way we get our muses to work. We seem to be dependant on these little spirits of inspiration so much so that without them, our motivation falls like a brick(I prefer a brick to a stone on this occasion). And the point is that why are we so reliant on our muse?

In reality(at least this one) being subservient to a bodily function seems to be akin to reverting to being a toddler. We get to train our bodies to wait for us to eat, sleep, exercise, go to the toilet and even breath(should you be a pearl diver or sewerage worker) but our creative mind gets to be waited upon like Cleopatra until it feelshappy enough to help us out.

So the answer to all this is either in blaming our parents for only toilet training us as a toddler(which is always a good excuse to a board of directors) or to work out exactly what the muse needs (may be alcohol, hard drugs, maths books or monopoly money) and then withold this until you have a better exchange policy. Blackmail always seems to be a good option, right?

Feasible?

I'm out of other inspirations I think I might just blame the parents.

21 is not always a card game

Birthday parties are meant to be the most fun you can have, with or without your clothes on. (At the early years it is a lot more acceptable that at the later ones) And they often are with the exceptions happening when people start to get depressed or compressed by thoughts about age, especially if it changes the last number from a nine to a zero.

Often when you start off being the most excited about getting past the age of ten, every age question is not a matter of how old you are, but how old you will be. If a child happens to be turning twelve in June, five years from now, he’ll adamantly say he’s turning 12.

And I have to congratulate the children on wanting to get to the teenage years so quickly. I enjoyed my angst-ridden years of wearing black outfits and complaining that everyone was out to get me. Who wouldn’t want to step back in time. And it’s not until you turn 18 that it starts to get a little better. The world is your oyster, which at the time you hate due to the fact that you’ve become a vegetarian.

But 18 leads you happily onto 21, the magical figure where the party is probably the best you’ll ever have, the presents are only matched by wedding gifts and the speeches people make actually make you proud of your achievements up till now(which include being the chip fryer manager at the local unrespectable eatery).

After this date, everyone now starts to fret about being old. Regardless of there actual age, people still live as though they want to be 21, and compare there lives to this magical figure as though it will make the flab they happen to be holding in there pinched fingers magically disappear.

But you are only as old as the verbal abuse you send out. To give you a fair idea of how this system works, you are about ten years older than anyone you want to tell off in a condescending fashion. If you hate school kids on the train and tell them that they should wear their slap bands correctly. If you complain about the young executives for talking loudly on their phones or not letting you sit down, you’re probably at least pushing mid 40’s. If you start complaining about elderly people over 90 you probably should be classed as an idiot and locked up especially if you’re under 30.

So don’t worry, just use the same stationary as you’re 21’s birthday. Don’t stop being 21, just never let your actual age past it. In that way, even when your children are 40 you can trundle out in your three wheeled scooter as people hand you happy 21st cards. It’s a foolproof plan. I’m still following it.