Relationships

I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships recently.  Not romantic relationships, which are complicated and treacherous and different.  I just mean friendships.  Friendships with people you care about and the notion of kharma and of positivity and of aspiration and how that plays into your life.  There is much, it seems, to be gained from focus and concentration on people that you care about, and there is much to be gained from listening earnestly without ulterior motive, and it seems there is much to be gained from being a good person and, again, cultivating friendships without a need for compensation or reimbursement of any sort whatever.

It seems to me that as you work to be a good person, good things will happen to you.  Now, of course, that’s a total cliche, and life will get in the way, and you may still get cancer, and I’m not talking about things fair or unfair.  But, you know, they say, “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation”.  And it’s something like that but perhaps both less and more complicated.

Let me be more specific as it relates to your job or to the music industry.  If you go around looking to use people.  If your eyes wander at every party for the next more important person to talk to.  If you are interested in a notion of relational instant gratification.  A spam message out to hundreds begging for a favor and then insolence when you don’t get it.  Well, that simply doesn’t work.  Or, to be more precise, it works rarely and  you have to be so skillful at caring and listening that even the people that you are clearly using as rungs in your stepladder don’t seem to mind.  This is the skill of a politician, is it not?

It’s not that Bill Clinton wasn’t listening.  It’s that he was!. People like Clinton can work a room, can feed off the energy from the room, and they’re not faking their interest in your story or  your anecdote.  Their power is that they actually do care and it matters to them.

But for most of us, we’re not able to spread ourselves, like peanut butter on toast, so thinly across so many people and still retain that kharmic momentum we need to mutually propel ourselves to something new or different.  For the rest of us, there is much to be gained in focusing our energies on people that we care about, people that interest us, and cultivating those relationships over time, with no expectation, again, of reimbursement or compensation.  No expectation of reward.  Simply for our love and interest in other people.

Here is a story.  10 years ago, roughly, I started a record label.  And I had no business running a record label and it was a lonely business and I was dirt poor despite raising a little bit of money from people like Derek’s dad.  And one day my friend Josh sent me a CD called ‘Halve the Light’ and it was Paul Brill’s first record since returning back to New York and getting back into music (I think).  So I really loved it and I got in touch with Paul and we worked together for a few months and I encouraged his pedal steel player, Rick, to cut his ponytail.  And although we didn’t “break through” while I was working with Paul, I did end up introducing him to Nelson Wells at Team Clermont and making one or two other useful introductions.

Then the label failed and years passed and I got a day job and then one day I started writing songs.  And, you see, I had remained friends with Paul and Nelson and people like them and it wasn’t because I needed them for anything, it was just because I found them interesting.  An email here and there.  A hang session.  Etc.  And so when I invited Paul over to listen to those early tunes it wasn’t as a complete stranger and even though they werent’ very good, we ended up working on a few songs together for the first Lipstik record.  And then my songwriting continued to evolve and then Paul was willing to produce my first record as The Flying Change.  And because I’d known Bill and Nelson so long at Team Clermont they were willing to give it an honest appraisal and they liked it.  And then Paul introduced me to some incredible musicians.  People like Matt Ray and Rob Jost and others and then those guys were and are just nice people and we started playing music together.

And so then, 10 years later, I could be at a birthday party for my friend, Katie, who plays the oboe in The Flying Change, and I could be hanging with some great people, all talented musicians, and we could be talking about a woodwind section that included a bassoon, a clarinet, an oboe and maybe even a bass clarinet or a contra-bassoon and you see how these paths meander along and how there is no single definition of success.  These are not even roads, per se.  They are little arteries.  They are little fabrics and communities and you build them.

And sure, maybe there was one decision back then or somewhere that would’ve led me to millions of dollars by now.  I can’t say for sure.  But I do know that happiness lies in the cultivation in those real and honest relationships and sometimes you see the rewards over many years and sometimes you see the rewards over a briefer period but really you see the rewards over the instant and the moment that you look to make real and honest human connections and listen to people and try to help them when you can.

I’m sure you can do it another way.  You can be this big lumbering insane behemoth and try to manipulate people into your desired actions and you can imagine that your behavior is cloaked and mysterious but, ultimately, there’s going to be a hollow space inside you.

You can conduct business any way you want to.  You can conduct life any way you want to.  Nice guys finish first.  And nice guys finish last.  But being nice and giving of yourself is more fun, to be honest. and so I intend to plot the former course and see where it takes me.

Now let us all hold hands and sing kumbaya.  But seriously forks.  It’s true.

Uncategorized Comments Comments Sep 10th, 2009

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