Helping People...

I got a Facebook message from my buddy Chris K. a few days ago. He wanted to know what to look for in a fountain pen.

I know Chris from several screenwriting courses that we had together at UofM, in which I took notes with my Cross Aurora deep red fountain pen, so apparently he though I am the go to guy on fountain pens. He was probably expecting a few sentences, a link to amazon, and a "good luck" sign off. I wrote back with 7 paragraphs, and it was tough to limit myself to even that. Not because I am overly knowledgeable about fountains (I actually know fairly little), but because I truly wanted to help him. There have been several other similar occasions. A few months back, my best man Grant's little sister Hailey wrote me asking about camera gear. I replied with a series of similarly lengthed messages.

I don't write this toot my own horn, who knows if the advice was even any good, and it surely was too wordy. I am writing this because I throughly enjoyed giving out this advice and hopefully helping these people, which is more than I can say for much of anything I've done for quite some time.

We might be on to something here...

The next obvious thought I have is, "how do I make a living out of helping people?", which instantly spurs up a complex on my part. "If you are making money off helping people, can you truly be genuine? Are you really help them, or just helping your bank account?"

I don't know how to answer that last part, but I do know I like helping people, and that is a start.