Entrepreneurial Spirit

 The dark robed man glided slowly across the dead earth of the graveyard, its soft soil transformed into a quagmire by the pelting rain. He stood in front of one grave stone scarred with the words "Entrepreneurial Confidence". Lifting a thick leather bound book before him as if preaching to an invisible congregation, he began to utter a series of deep ominous words with a rhythmic droning rumble that would drill fear and uncertainty into the mind of any who heard it. His tone, the speed of his immaculate pronunciation and the volume of his voice simultaneously rose as he snapped the book shut, raising both hands violently skywards to be blindingly silhouetted by the sudden and vibrant flash of lightening. A moment of silence punctuated the scene, then a slow trembling shudder ran through the ground, gently at first, like a colossal beast shaking its self awake from slumber. As the quake reached its climax, the ground before the gravestone cracked then, after a moments pause, exploded upwards. Fragmented soil flew through the rain, pelting the old necromancer with a mixture of mud and water but he continued to smile, transfixed by the figure climbing out of the fractured wooden coffin.
 ...That was not how my entrepreneurial confidence was resurrected today but in terms of the dramatic mental impact it had on me it could be comparable to the slightly over extended and tenuous metaphor above. For my confidence as an entrepreneur has been dead a fair few years, ever since a school competition titled the Social Entrepreneurs Project (SEP for short, I do feel its shame they didn't title it the Entrepreneurial Social Project in which case the abbreviation would be ESP giving the misguiding but nonetheless interesting suggestion that it is some program associated with psychics) whose basic aim was to raise money to help children in Africa.
 A friend, called Faisal, and I decided we would buy sweets cheaply then resell them at school at a far higher price. Since Faisal lived in New Malden (despite being Pakistani, or more importantly, not Korean which meant he was treated as an immigrant within a community of immigrants, like some sort of Matryoshka doll of mild racism) we decided to buy a vast quantity of penguin bars (about thirty pounds worth of confectionery in total) from his local Iceland as well as some Japanese sweets called "Haichu" (A chewy fruit flavored sweet which gave you happiness and diabetes in equal quantities). Our ploy went a little like this, "The people at school shall all become addicted to Haichu and penguin bars, relentlessly eating and buying, trapped in a vicious cycle of sweet consumption and craving (cue evil laughter)"
 However, as if to prove there is some karmic justice within the world, both Faisal and I promptly became addicted on our own stock of foods (I on Penguin bars, he on Haichu). Like hunters who had been ensnared and captured by the sheer excellence of their very own traps we had finished off our entire supply of teeth torturing treats by the end of our first day of business. However we still had our pride as businessmen, and as true vendors we could not allow our customers to not pay, even if the customers were ourselves. Hence we paid for our ridiculously over priced confectionery (while being bitterly aware that it was over priced and even more bitterly knowing that we had already paid for it once) thereby successfully making a profit on paper but in reality making huge losses in terms of money, dignity and confidence in enterprise. At the end of a tough week of being social entrepreneurs we had actually gained nothing apart blood sugar levels and weight.
 From that crushing tragic defeat forth, I had never thought I could ever be a, entrepreneur. It was one potential aspiration which had become less of a career path and more of a 120 mile per hour career motorway utilized exclusively by trucks, the middle of which I would have to walk, trying to deftly dodge the metaphorical vehicular executioners lest I be splattered thinner than my chances of becoming a successful businessman. However, on this very day, my eyes were opened, then kept open with a contraption of metal wires as I was metaphorically put through the entire Clockwork Orange experience (though generally more positive and pleasant) to a whole new possibility of career for me.
 Today, at my school, it was Make A Difference Day, abbreviated with self deprecating humor to MADD. A day dedicated to charities of all kinds (ranging from childrens' hospices to cancer research to helping infants in Africa) where the school grounds are littered with sweet vendors, coconut shies, sport competitions, buskers and various other fairground style activities all raising money for charities. The day also gave permission for students to come in dressed not in the usual suits but in their own home clothes. So there I was, dressed in my lavender colored shirt, violet trousers, purple tie, jet black top hat and billowing dark coat, feeling thoroughly misanthropic as self righteous charitable souls walked around smearing their goodwill in people's faces.
 Then as I was harassing a group of buskers by tunelessly joining in on their singing, one of the people running MADD approached me with a tray full of sandwiches in their hand. Apparently there was an excess of sandwiches and she, along with several other tray bearing laborers, were now attempting to rid themselves of the sandwiches by distributing them for free. I, like other great business leaders before me such as Lord Sugar or Steve Jobs, in one inspired entrepreneurial move exclaimed "I'll take the whole tray!"
 Quickly I began to run amongst the crowds, attempting to sell my sandwich to passers by for just twenty pence while also eating some of them myself as I hadn't had lunch. However, despite the fact I did everything to make them seem appealing (verbally promoting them, rotating the tray seductively, threatening potential customers with violence) none of them seemed to sell, perhaps due to the recent economic downturn or the fact that the sandwiches were getting drier and drier by the second, losing what little appeal they originally had or the fact that there were other people going around giving out identical sandwiches for free.
 Very soon my legs were tired from running, my voice hoarse from shouting, my heart heavy with despair and my stomach heavy with sandwiches yet I hadn't sold a single sandwich. I sank to my knees, my will (like a "shatterproof" ruler in the forceful hands of a curious child) on the verge of breaking, was I to lose at this first hurdle on the road to business success? To be defeated like other business tycoons before me? Defeated like Murdoch by the Leveson Inquiry, Woolworths by the economic downturn and Steve Jobs by cancer?
 As I sank deeper and deeper into emotional submission a voice called out to me, a lifeline cast from the banks of the river, a blond, stupid and gullible lifeline called Hugo Speak (An individual whose bar of chocolate I once snatched and ate after he said "I wonder what it would be like to live in a lawless society") and his clueless words echoed in my grateful eardrums like the tinkling of gold coins on a marble floor "Oh, how much are those sandwiches?"
 "Twenty pence," I replied cautiously, hardly believing my luck but grasping onto it with all my strength nonetheless.
 Now, the brilliance of a charity event where many things are being sold for charity is that people instantly assume any goods being sold are being sold for charity. Example one, Hugo Speak spoke to say, "Well I'll pay fifty pence since its my donation." Donation to my wallet, I thought but did not utter. "Oh my money's in my bag" he announced and began to slowly unzip his bag. However even as he did so, I realized there was someone walking behind him, a tray full of sandwiches identical to the ones I had in every respect except his were completely free. If he were to call out to Hugo at this moment the entire deal would be blown. Silently willing the blond haired idiot of a customer to hurry up and take out his money, I watched my competition edge ever closer, sweat on my brow, the tray shaking in my nervous hands.
 Then, with a sudden clink of a fifty pence coin and the swift selection of two triangular sections of bread, the transaction was complete. I had a fifty pence profit and my customer had a dry tasteless sandwich he could have had for free. Of course he had the benefit of having the emotional satisfaction of thinking he had given to charity, a benefit I destroyed with a few smug words. I proceeded to quickly flee across the school with a very disgruntled customer behind me, a tray of sandwich in my arms, a profit in my pocket and a bright future in business ahead of me.

To Start On an Epiphany

I have before this time attempted to start and maintain several different blogs but this evening, at precisely around (a combination of words which seem to contradict each other but nonetheless capture my desire for it to have been precisely midnight for my own personal love of dramatics in real life and the unavoidable fact that I do in fact have no way of knowing when exactly the idea appeared in my head as I simply am not the sort of person to regularly look at the time) midnight I had something of an epiphany. Or perhaps epiphany is too large a term for this instance, rather like over wrapping a present with several layers of garishly colorful wrapping paper when the present its self is something small, relatively cheap, appropriately cheerful but not particularly significant to the recipient of the gift, a "cute" object from "Paperchase" for example.
 I have recently gotten into borrowing a "Paperchase" rubber from one of my female underlings, one Underling Spirit, who is in my maths class and although I used to sneer at the pointless brand of "cute" stationary in favor of the far more functional, cheap, unisex and less fashionable WHSmith brand; I must admit I have recently grown fond of the little green rectangular semi-transparent block of broken dreams or whatever rubbers are made of (possibly rubber unless the term "rubber" comes from the act of using the object to rub something and not the material out of which it is made in which case the name "rubber" is terribly deceptive and must be changed immediately)with the name "paperchase" scrawled neatly, almost seductively, in nice curled sloping writing on its melon coloured surface. I may go and buy one of my own Paperchase rubbers in the near future but considering my dignity as a man is always skimming the surface of utter oblivion like some fish-hunting sea bird cruising a centimeter above the dark oceans of extreme male femininity, I suspect going into a Paperchase store may result in me losing all rights to owning a protrusive reproductive organ.
 Anyhow back to the main point, epiphany or not, I came to the realization that so far in my attempts at being a blogger I had gotten everything completely and utterly wrong, I had gotten lost in the maze of the very fundamental concept of blogging to such an extent that it was no longer a matter of turning right when I was meant to be going left but rather continuing to plough head first into the floor of the metaphorical maze.
 I simply had not realized that blogging was all about presenting ones self and ones own experiences in a genuine fashion.
 In my previous blogging attempts I had employed well thought out, plotted and planned methods to attempt to be more amusing than I actually am or to purposefully over dramatize certain events for the benefit of an utterly non existent readership. In doing so my blog had lost all character and voice, essentially becoming a multi-coloured soulless empty husk of a chunk of text. I had lost sight of the fact that people usually observe blogs to see into the lives and minds of other people, like looking into a neighbor's garden. What I had essentially done with my cybernetic mental gardens was, instead of growing plants of my own personal preference in the garden as I should have, conducting thorough research into what my neighbor's botanical preferences were then proceeding to stick lots of garish plastic copies of said plants. Thereby depriving my blog of all life or interest (where the garden analogy falls down is that an entirely plastic garden would, in its own slightly creepy way, be quite fascinating whereas my previous blog attempts had absolutely no such charisma or, consequently, readership).
 Hence I intend to keep this blog, I have no idea how long it will last but I have a good feeling about this one (The primary reason being that I have just enjoyed myself immensely in the last thirty minutes or so of worthless egocentric typing) so i would be honored if anyone would care to stick around for the ride (and as a word of warning to avoid disappointment, the term "ride" gives suggestion of an element of speed and excitement whereas, as you may have guessed from this long introduction, my rides are quite slow and full of utterly irrelevant detours). All aboard.