Of Stones & Smiles

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Of Stones & Smiles ~

Of Smiles And Statues, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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A lot of people make a lot, and often not such a lot, of money doing a lot of weird and wild and woeful things. Like actors and dancers and surfers and soldiers and waiters and cleaners and stock brokers and surgeons, not in any particular order...

This guy doughs his face, dons white and sits there doing absolutely nothing at all. With aplomb. Until someone gives him money, at which point... he smiles. This financial contribution to someone doing nothing, followed by his reaction, which is the HUGE reward of a smile because of your modest donation... makes you smile, and hence feel you've got your money's worth.

Not bad work if you can get it. The only problem is... you have to do nothing, and I'm not sure I could manage that.

I suppose you could say that he is doing, or has at least done something a little out of the ordinary, by getting dressed up as a statue and sitting preternaturally still, otherwise why on earth give him money in the first place? And the anticipation of something enjoyable happening must also be a motivating factor. And apparently something enjoyable does happen.

I got a dog recently and some say we should model ourselves on dogs. Why? Because they are one of the very few animals which earn their living by doing nothing much at all, or at least not much productive, like this guy above. But not quite nothing, that's the thing. They do actually give us excitement and woofs and wagging tails each time they see us, which for some reason makes us want to give them shelter and food and strokes and cuddles and rabies shots and the very best doggie treats.

Err, so I think the moral of this piece is 'smile more', and even if it isn't, that sounds pretty good to me. Just watch out for glazed-over-eye guys in white coats bearing bones in one hand and big needles in the other...

And why not...

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