I'm cold... my feet are cold.
I wouldn't like me if I had to meet me.
No, I'd avoid me completely, if I were me.
I'm not a very pleasant person.
I'm always trying to look at people
who smile and who have laughter.
I'm always trying to work out what motivates them
and how can I be like that too, you know?
I also want to be happy.
I mean I can actually remember my last belly laugh
and it was more than twenty years ago.
I became too cynical.
I'm always hyper critical.
I don't know why I'm fixated about
finding faults in people.
I'm not sure what it is.
Yes, perhaps I'm looking at myself
and I see my own weakness in other people
and I'm trying to work through it, you know.
I don't really know.
I've lost faith in human nature.
But I met a dog who didn't.
It was an awful dog... it looked awful.
She had spindly legs and a roly-poly body.
And no teeth of course.
And people were kicking her and shooing her away.
The dog kept coming back
even though people were kicking her.
And this dog came up to me.
And it blew my mind.
Here's an animal that has been kicked around
by humans constantly.
But it hasn't given up on the chance of finding love.
She hadn't lost faith in human beings.
She just kept trying to find
somebody to look after her and to love her.
And it broke my heart, so I took the dog on.
And it turned out to be my best friend.
Her name... I called her Mojo Manuga.
And she was also nicknamed the Minister of Defence
because she had no teeth.
And if she lay in her little box
and the other dogs came near her, she'd growl.
But she was toothless so it was just a scam.
It was a defence mechanism...
feigning anger and puffing herself up
and being all angry.
But there was nothing there, she couldn't hurt.
She was harmless.
I think empathy is a good thing...
understanding of why somebody is like they are.
And I think a lot of people do want to be understood.
I think a lot of people just want that empathy.
They just want the understanding of
what drives them and motivates them.
She just exuded absolute gratitude
and she had a sense of belonging you know.
I think it's very significant that she kept trying
and she was rewarded for that attempt.
And so even when things are really bad
and one feels really depressed and everybody is nasty to you,
if you keep trying to be nice to people
it will reciprocate and somebody will give you love
and be nice back to you.
So that is the glimmer of hope...
being nice to people and they give it back.
I'm fully aware of beautiful people
doing beautiful things for other people.
Doff my hat to them.
I haven't got a hat of course.
But if I had a hat, I'd doff it.
Those people who are kind and charitable,
without accolades...
they are the truly good people in this world.
We need more of those, for sure.
I'd like to strive to becoming better.
And I certainly would like to go out
with a last thought it my head saying,
I tried not to be so nasty.
There's also a story about a bloke
who learnt to play piano at 60
and ended up at the Carnegie Hall at 80.
So I do take a little bit of hope in the fact that
it's never too late to get going.
And Mojo taught me these lessons.
She allowed me to believe
that there is a chance that humans are good.