Keeping up with Jimmy Jones.

My best friend in kindergartens name was Jimmy. He was the coolest dude you ever met at age 4. The girls swooned over him and he never had a hair out of place. He had these brightly coloured red, yellow and blue zip up shoes that were the bomb and I wanted those shoes so bad I asked my Mum if I could get them (yes fashion conscious at age 4). We'd seen them on 'Cartoon Connection' and they were the 'must have' for the winter. They were amazing. Soft panelled vinyl with the power to illuminate the pavement and complement contemporary 80's style all while making the statement that you were part of the new 'cool'. The first day I went to put them on (actually it was my mum that was putting them on) the zipper broke! Can you believe it? My grand entrance into the 'show and tell' circle- gone! Who can I blame? The manufacturer, the quality control agent at the plant, the distributor- of course not I was 4 and had no idea how business worked so I cried. I cried as my dreams disappeared.
Later that year I had a play date with Jimmy at his house. Sure we were only 4 but, we were the biggest Mad Dogs and it was anyone's guess what crazy shit we would get up to so naturally we had to be supervised. Being mini we escaped the watchful grown up guard and went into the workshop of Jimmy's Dad. He was a potter and you couldn't take a step without potentially breaking something. Jimmy had a toy of some sort confiscated earlier and we ventured in to claim it back- no one was going to tell Jimmy what he could and couldn't play with (told you we were mad dogs). I thought it was a bad idea but I saw what Jimmy had and I wanted it too. The sweet fashion sense, the cool hair, the admiration of girls, (I know we were 4 but I seriously think its around that time when I peaked with the opposite sex) It had to be mine and this was the way to get it. We climbed up on the bench, scaled some shelves breaking shit left, right and centre to reclaim his toy. For some reason the sound of breaking ceramic pots caused alarm and we were busted. I explained to Mum on the way home that it was Jimmy's idea which was subsequently met with the character building question of "If Jimmy told you to jump off a cliff would you do it?" (Mum's- always have an answer within in a question for everything)
Envy and jealousy are cute when you're 4 years old but it can have serious ramifications when you're a grown up and the consequences of it come in varying forms. Those shoes represented a lot more than a fashion accessory and I wanted them so bad it hurt but when I finally got them they weren't everything I thought they'd be and couldn't accept it wasn't meant to be. What ever the motivations are that ignite your envy or jealousy it pays to recognise that we were not meant to have everything. Maybe if the 10th commandment had read "Thou shall not covet thy neighbours house nor Reebok pumps" modern society would have been able to understand what it meant and incorporate into to everyday practice a little better. Fast forward a few thousand years and you have another character telling you "Greed is Good"- best go with your gut on that one I think. My mum's 'jumping off a cliff' question got repeated a bit when I was growing up. As a budding fashionista and a pretty solid social life until the age of 6 it certainly had its place as a potential catch phrase but you have to wonder are external influences providing too much for parents to battle? are the societal and commercial pressures influencing youth of today too much for a young mind to comprehend and process an outcome right for them? are the avenues in which such influences are accessing these minds being overused and exploited?
So next time you're getting a little jelly of the kid next door ask yourself why, how you came to this point and scream at the top of your lungs: "Stick it up your arse Jimmy Jones, I'm not jumping off the bloody cliff!"

Lego Aeroplanes Pt2

They were everywhere as our truck pulled in to town. Yellow heads could be seen all the way to the edge of blocks. Although we were rejoicing I couldn't help but feel I'd entered the 'Danger Zone'. We'd left it all behind, made the decision to stop living with our heads and there was a new alphabet without the letters K, P and I. It was a celebration in town, suddenly the weight of the world was off our shoulders and living our nights by day. I do like hanging out in Lego town but the seats get uncomfortable after a while, it is hard to 'high 5' with the gang and it gets kinda creepy how they have to take their hair off to wear a hat. Living your dreams is fun nonetheless but, you have to exit the town at some stage and when you do the real world seems a whole lot bigger than one made of small blocks.
Once you've made the decision to dream, committed and rejoiced you can only live there for so long before you have to communicate it to the outside world, come out of the shed and tell everybody what you were looking for and that is not easy. It's wholly yours, it's personal and it's vulnerable. Modern day 'dreamers' are only spared from judgement if the dream manages to fit within the hours of 9 to 5 and involve a quarterly growth spreadsheet. Announcing the plan will come with scrutiny, the 'looks' will be easy to dismiss, the words easy to counter but the it's silence that lingers which is the hardest to respond to. Societal pressures that sell the comfort of safety will tempt and test you back to conventional thinking and invoke a sense of doubt that leaves you feeling like you were just stripped of an Olympic medal. It's not as easy as you thought it was going to be. Remaining on course is the hardest part to dreaming, only made difficult because you don't have a course to follow. One couldn't be blamed for dismissing them and giving up with everyday life as the reason for doing so. There's no wikipedia page to tell you how to achieve it and no A to F grading once you do.
It's often mistaken that dreamers don't know what they 'want' to do with their lives and sometimes appear lost to the outside world, that's not the issue, it's that they don't know what they 'have' to do to support their unconventional choice as most dreams don't fit into routine. Their dream is new system, a new way of thinking or a new career with no precedent for others to understand and subsequently accept. It's the brave that follow dreams and with a thousand phrases, analogies and metaphors to use along the way you just have to dream the right one for you.