Muses
Jim Hlavac's
Mentors
Some people make you think better
I have been the mentor and muse for dozens of people.  They were mostly young
men whom I met along the way of my life.  They attached themselves to me and
pumped me for ideas, information, opinions and confirmation of their goals, plans and
dreams.  

Everybody, at one point or time in their lives plays this role to some young person.  
Sometimes they actively seek out someone to help; there are plenty of programs to do
so.  Sometimes the people they help are merely their own kids or some other relative,
or someone they know.  Few just have people come up to them deciding that they are
to be taken over as a mentor and a muse.  

While mentors and muses are surely two different things, in some way they are very
related. The mentor surely acts as a muse of sorts.  Any muse mentors in an inactive
way, a passive way, a non-intrusive way.  It is a confusing set of circumstances that
define the mentor or the muse person in ones life, or if you are the mentor or muse,
how and what you do.  For there is no certain way to define what a mentor or a muse
actually do.  Nor is there a way to define what the other person, the absorbing person,
the observing person, gets out of the relationship.  It is symbiotic to say the least.

These pages explore some of the mentors and muses in my life.