It's sometimes difficult to appreciate how much you can influence another person's life and not even realise it. So you can imagine my HUGE surprise when a friend of mine sent a comic to me in the post and I was in it!!
'The Cleaner Man of Destiny' by Fraser Geesin dropped through my postbox and at first I was wondering why my friend had sent it to me, he didn't even include a warning note .... I almost fell over when I started reading it and there I was on page 3.....
Fraser, the chap who wrote it was on the same degree course as me, although we specialised in different modules. I was studying theatre, 'seagulling'* around the green spaces of Brighton, whilst he sat in dark rooms playing with keyboards on the music module. It was a weird set up, as the groups only tended to get together at house parties, Hector's House (the lunchtime, teatime, anytime pub of choice) and town centre student nights. Oh those heady hedonistic days!
Anyway, the comic goes on to explain that now, years later Fraser is stuck in a dead-end cleaner job when he discovers my autobiography on the client's table. He reminisces about meeting me at an as-mentioned house party and I turned down his offer of a drink, and now here I was with a published book having rowed across the Atlantic, twice!
It's a strange position to be in, firstly having that 'ego' reflex - the knowledge that my book.... yes MY BOOK was out there on someone's table, and they'd bought it and were reading it. Then secondly knowing that someone's discovery of that book had inspired their creativity but (according to the comic) made them feel really quite bad about themselves, their own achievements and direction in life.
Through the power of social media I found Fraser on Twitter and dropped him a line letting him know that I'd seen the comic. I also promised to write about it on my website. So here I am writing about it. Although, like I said it's sort of weird. I almost wanted to tell him to read the book, to know that the achievement was great, but actually it came with a lot of failure and disappointment (and my far share of crap jobs!)
Maybe I should be used to this, as I've been lucky enough to be mentioned in a few books now... mostly written by other ocean rowers, but or years, especially as a teenager and in my twenties I did feel like I moved through life as a shadow, never really believing that anything I did had an influence on others. In fact, I liked being a person that nobody really talked about. Sounds daft but it came as a surprise when I grew up and realised that I wasn't the island I thought I was or wanted to be.
It's perhaps odd that now I spend my career talking about my life in the hope that my experiences inspire others. It just goes to show everyone's circle of influence is often far bigger than we ever could imagine (and maybe acknowledging this may actually change the way we behave?)
So, 'Cleaner Man of Destiny' who had more influence? Me on you or you on me? Who knows, but let's make a promise that whichever way it is it's a positive one.
S x
*seagulling - after a brief warm up we'd grab a tea towel and run around the local park pretending to be seagulls - yep, I know what you're thinking ... 'bloody pretentious theatre students'!!
