I’m such a workaholic that the only way I can even make friends with people is by interviewing them or spending time with people in working situations. It’s how I get to know somebody on the level that I might really be interested in knowing them. Even my dialogues or correspondence with friends in foreign countries usually happens just because I have something else to get accomplished and they were originally contacted under other circumstances. Recently I have been using the process of researching for some technical white papers and articles I am authoring, in order to network and establish contacts in media related fields such as video production, audio recording, computer animation, 3D modeling, game design and music therapy. Some of the people I've been talking to have evinced quite a lot of interest in the work I'm involved in and want to hear more about it on an ongoing basis. To those who have requested to be updated on a regular basis, I've sent a link to this site and expect a lot of feedback about their reactions to the process being exposed here.
I have the idea that even though friendship is often defined as a leisure related activity, there's really something else at work — it's really about an alliance, about people who believe in the same things and therefore want to talk to each other. Building intense social relationships and enjoying those types of interactions, paying attention to lots of simultaneous details has a enormous benefit for me, I get a lot of things accomplished with this. And having "lunch" with someone often brings out ideas that are not a normal part of the working context. It's almost as if the pleasure of relaxing and enjoying being around someone like that, creates an atmosphere of adventure and discovery, where I'm finding out about things I don't know about this person and their finding things out about me as well. Immediately I realize that we have expanded the relationship, that even more is being accomplished than in the regular context of working on a project together. Common interests become a mutual foundation for furthering our work together. And what's more, we are now sharing on a much more profound level, which is where insights occur into exploring each new opportunity to accomplish things with an expanded set of skills or tools or knowledge and expertise that doesn't normally come into view under other circumstances. Once people hear that I play the piano for instance, they normally never fail to let me know that they have desires to do the same thing. It seems almost universal that artistry and creative accomplishments are things that people DO admire and respect. It isn't normal for someone to say, I'm glad I never took that up, it's a real waste of time. Instead, I immediately understand that EVERYONE wants to participate and engage with creativity. The only barrier is the lack of access. "I wish I had piano lessons as a kid" or "I wanted to be a artist, but my teachers told me that it was a tough way to make a living". Are the children of our society making choices based on misinformation? Are we letting down our descendants by NOT supporting and encouraging early interests in the Arts and Music? I am going to look at this in depth and publish the results of my research. There are already indications that people assume too much about these ideas...and what we really need to do, is make a difference in the lives of our youth culture by achieving a life-long relationship with creative problem solving, disciplined and dedicated optimization of natural talent and characteristics and above all a LOVE for the cultural aspects of either side of the performer/audience symbiosis.