The Calm Before The Storm

It would be fair to say that I’ve had a reasonably quiet start to the year, something perhaps reflected in my recent web presence or lack thereof. Having spent so much time wanting to be someone who had written a book as opposed to someone who is writing one and trying to achieve that; I hadn’t really thought about the next bit. It hadn’t been necessary. But come just after New Year, and with the initial mass of passion and drive about what I was doing when originally able to take to the streets with my book all but expired, I was then faced with that question again. What am I doing? Or at least what do I want to be doing next that could drive my present now’s?

This was a question to which I didn’t really have an answer, but one I needed to find an answer to. Half of the battle of knowing what to do is knowing what you want to do. I know enough from personal experience that I don’t want to do things such as call centre work or charity street fundraising again, both professions that seem to make up the majority of what’s on offer for people of a certain age at the moment, but what did I actually now want to do? Knowing a few of the things you don’t want to do can be but a small comfort and a poor substitute to such priceless knowledge.

It’s harder to inspire when you’re not being as inspiring and while I wasn’t doing anything uninspiring I felt I needed to sort my next plans to be able to continue mass distribution of ‘The Happiness Manifesto’ sincerely. If you’re not doing something about things you can end up simply complaining about them, and that’s not something I’ve ever wanted to do. As a result of such thought I found I wasn’t so inclined to invite public conversation as frequently, though I did distribute a small number of books in Berlin (where I went for my birthday in the New Year) and perhaps a month later I also took to the streets when I was lucky enough to come into a large amount of cake; though this occasion only seemed to serve to suggest that the British public may actually be more interested in rhetorical questions than free cake.

               

The next thing I’d wanted to do with ‘The Happiness Manifesto’ was to take it to Manchester, but I no longer felt inspired to do it. I needed to work out what I wanted to do and it needed to be good. To do this I worked out everything that I like doing and tried working out how in any way I could maintain my existence through such activity. What would my dream occupation entail? It took me a while but what I came up with was that I’d like to run a clothes, records and books shop that would also act as a creative lounge, performance space and skills swap shop for young, creative people who want help putting projects together. Further that it’d be called The Crystal Ship and that I’d like to run it with my girlfriend. I always give time to consider multiple possibilities and genuinely spend time trying to think ‘sensibly’ but it never seems to make much sense. No, it may be a tough goal but once one is in mind it is instantly infinitely more achievable than not having one at all, and makes anything that isn’t that more bearable so long as you know you are still working towards it. More than that though it is truly my goal and already since realizing that this is what I want to do I have made sizeable first steps and more towards finding out how this may become achievable.

With renewed energy, enthusiasm and focus  Manchester was once again in my sights. The weather was good, I was going to stay with an old, dear and not recently seen friend and was to have my first hitch of the year to get there. I was up in three and there by 4 and, not including 2 a half hours stood on a roundabout next to a dead dog, it was all round a very pleasant journey. After a good evening’s catch up I went the next day to the Arndale where I decided I wanted to hit Manchester short and sweet and get the 40 books I had on me quickly to receptive people. The way I did this was with a sign simply saying ‘Free books for Smiles’. An hour later and 40 smiles up I was ready to enjoy the rest of my visit and catch up in Manchester knowing I had brought smiles to a few more faces, and got a few more copies of ‘The Happiness Manifesto’ out into the world.

               

I always wanted to visit certain cities and distribute books on the street, and I’ve done that now with over 300 out there. This leaves me a small number which I will from here be carrying around with me as I do already; just one in the back pocket on occasions whereby it feels right to distribute if it seems appropriate. But this isn’t the end, it’s the beginning and as I suggested in the title; the calm before the storm as I have so much latent energy just hungry to be thrown into something again. I want to create and achieve something for myself that will hopefully benefit other young people who want to achieve their dreams and become who they want to be.

Watch this space…

Cross Examined in Cardiff

Cardiff’s a very special place to me as it is partially responsible for four of the best years of my life; or at least it provided the backdrop to that time and place we call University. That all I learnt was that I probably didn’t need a degree is little to no matter; an expensive lesson but one that can only really be learnt by indeed doing it and one that pales into insignificance when you consider the friends you make, the experiences you share and that last period of almost freedom that you have before the reality of the adult world. As such returning to Cardiff to do some book distribution was always going to be one of my first moves after getting them published, and the idea that I could give a little something back to a place that had given me so much was a pleasant one which had me smiling all the way to Queen Street. Indeed from the moment I got off the train and stepped out I felt both care-free and yet in control, which is how I’ve become accustomed to feeling in Wales’ fine capital and my adopted second home. I knew that I was in for a good two days and was very much looking forward to getting out among the people of the bustling high street and having some interesting conversations.

Both afternoons on Queen Street panned out much as my time in Bristol had which is unsurprising as I was essentially doing the same thing in a different location. This meant a fair amount of confused expressions, quite a bit of intrigue and many a pleasant and positive resultant conversation within which at some point I hand over a copy of ‘The Happiness Manifesto’ before parting ways, usually mutually satisfied by the encounter. In this sense, at times what I’m doing is really easy. The people who are willing to strike up a conversation with a stranger and ask them what they’re up to are usually positive people who are quick to be on board with what you are doing anyway, provided you are going about it in the right manner. As such there are inevitably multiple encounters that I have in a day which play out quite similarly, and at times quite casually, as if merely with friends I had not yet met. This is a most pleasant series of experiences but makes it all the more important to stay sharp for those encounters which require a little more work.

On my second afternoon in Cardiff, having spent a few hours out on the street, I was approached by a man who similarly to many other people that day wanted to know what I was up to. What was clear very quickly however, was that this man was not particularly predisposed to like me and that he would be prepared to let me speak but did not want to hear whimsical positive thinking and would be quite quick to cut me short if he felt I wasn’t answering his questions properly. Why is it exactly that I’m doing what I’m doing? Why’s that any better than what anyone else is doing and what exactly am I proposing? I almost lost him early on when I admitted that I wasn’t so much concerned with answers but encouraging people to ask the questions necessary to begin to generate answers. This clearly wasn’t good enough, so when pushed further I said that the answers I implied revolved around the overcoming of both money and government. He agreed that the gap between rich and poor had become too great but didn’t see how what I was suggesting could provide any sort of solution and further highlighted the futile nature of what I was actually doing, suggesting that as a clearly intelligent, articulate young man he was surprised I couldn’t find, what in his mind, would be a more positive and constructive outlet for my personal feelings of wanting to do some sort of social good.

This whole discussion went on for the best part of forty minutes and meandered all over the place going from politics to religion to at times me answering quite personal questions about my own background in relation to both of those subjects and a fair few more but in the end, having not wanted to take a copy of my book when first offered, this gentleman not only took my book but complimented me highly and wished me luck. This was a real turn around but had taken full concentration for the best part of an hour to achieve, and left me feeling totally exhausted. I was done for the day but elated from the intensity of the discussion and the extent to which it had taken quite a lot of mental agility to get through it. When people are being openly friendly to myself, who has chosen to be a stranger standing out, it is a beautiful thing but it is easy to forget the position I choose to put myself in. If someone asks you what are you doing and you say that you are promoting the pursuit of happiness it is, if you think about it, fair enough to then ask what I mean by that, how exactly and why. That I managed to successfully navigate through the lines of questioning that resulted from every answer I gave served to sharpen my dialectic powers of argument but also served to remind me exactly what it is I’m doing and why I’m doing it through forcing me to consider both carefully.

Last night I ordered 125 more books.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to London to show my support for anyone who’s striking over pensions or indeed amassing for a public show of frustration.

In the days after that I’ll be distributing books across landmarks in the capital.