Bouncing Back

A few years back I was listening to something on the radio about Tony Blair, the former British PM, and his ability to wake up refreshed no matter what headaches he'd been facing the previous day, and breezily get on with setting the world to rights. This aspect of his character was outlined by someone who'd written a book about him but who wasn't exactly a complete admirer. In fact, the guy sounded like a bit of a turncoat - someone formerly of the inner circle who'd kept a diary of sorts of the circle's circling, now doing the dirty and spilling the beans. At the time the observation in question struck me as a useful insight into what made Blair effective, well, at least to the extent of getting himself a string or two of power to pull. Whether he pulled them in any useful directions is open to numerous questions: I know a few folk who might well see him as setting the world to wrongs rather than rights. Which, of course, leaves open the question of whether the man's resilience is something we should seek to emulate. If you're just bouncing back without bouncing in any good direction you might be better off deflating.

This thought came to me as I awoke this morning with a bouncing sort of energy for the second day of an on-going Drama Camp. Galvanising the troops prior to breakfast felt satisfying to me, but I'm not sure I would have appreciated it as one of the actual troops. If you really enjoy irritating people seek to be revoltingly fresh first thing. You can happily wilt later and no one will really notice.