One day, long long ago, I was walking along Manly Beach with my friend Stephen when we ran into a guy giving away everything he owned. Naturally we walked over to see if there was anything good we could score for free. I asked the guy why he was giving everything away and he told me it was in the name of Jesus. He told us that when you give things away, you get things in return and it starts a cycle of reciprocity.

At the time I thought he was a lunatic (I’m sure he was, but not in the way I thought), however thinking about this 10 years later, he was a remarkable man. Stephen and I got a tape from the guy which had one song on it called “hungry hippo”. The lyrics were “we’re the hungry hungry hippos da da da da da we’re the hungry hungry hippos”. It was a random, bizarre, low budget recording which repeated the same thing over and over. The song had us in stitches for hours and we sung it together for months. In fact if Stephen reads this post, I know he will piss himself laughing again.

It’s funny how something so simple and seemingly innocuous can provide so much enjoyment. That man has made me think about this cycle of reciprocity and has influenced me so strongly that I will remember that day forever. And now I pass this story on to you - giving something away (however small) can have a profound effect on the receiver (in ways you would never expect), and if we all made an effort to pass something on the world would be a better place.

What stirred up this memory was Tom Kelshaw’s post on the viral waistcoat which is an experiment to see if a physical object can go viral. I hope this is successful, though if that waistcoat came into my hands, it would go no further. That thing is cool as shit!