Friendship : 2021 Style
Yesterday I started my “conversation with myself” by mentioning that I needed some more/new friends in my life and I also mentioned that I would prefer them to be musicians.
Kurt Vonnegut once said something about television and friends. He implied that the reason so many people get addicted to TV shows was because they could identify with the characters actually being a part of their life and as such being friends by default.
What came to mind this morning was that something similar has happened to me but it’s happened via podcasts on YouTube. My new friends are integrative doctors, health practitioners and researchers, critical thinkers and musicians. How funny is that? I hadn’t really noticed until now that I have rolled out a group of fascinating people who I listen to online when I walk, when I am in the sauna and often when I am asleep. Yes, that’s right, I often start listening to a podcast when I go to be but I fall asleep pretty quickly and wake up with the earphones still on and the podcast complete.
I have particularly enjoyed listening to Steve Lukather recently, he is the epitome of what I consider a musician to be. A great player, technically adept as well as full of passion and damn exciting plus fully engaged and in sublime communication with the other musicians but also full of a wonderful irreverence. Last night I listened to 90 minutes with Pat Metheny, another guitar player who I have a lot of time for. He is a totally different kettle of fish but he’s an amazing musician.
Then there are all of the guys who I listened to talking about cancer, diet, exercise etc over the past 8 months plus quite a few others. Another favourite is an American musician, educator and producer named Rick Beato. he is another guy who is brimming with passion and a huge desire to share his knowledge with others.
I will quite possibly never meet these guys but I could contact them directly in this age of the internet. Who knows, maybe I could strike up a personal friendship with a few of them. But there again maybe this is impractical.
The point is that what I look for in a new friend is inspiration and also possibly a reassurance that my values are shared with others, whether they be philosophical, musical or just generally inquisitive about life and living.
One of the great things about all of this is that I can “kill two birds” by doubling up and listening to these people speak while I do something else.
We got some tragic news last night via Facebook. In late 2018 we met a person in Bali named Brenda. We stayed at her house just outside Ubud. She is important to us in that she prompted our desire to set up a house in Bali. In other words she put some water on a seed that had laid dormant for several decades. Probably if it wasn’t for meeting Brenda and what ensued we wouldn’t have searched and searched in Bali until we found our current property. While we were with her she talked about her husband David. He sounded pretty interesting but was in the US while we stayed at their house. His sense of design and aesthetics really appealed to me. The houses we stayed in that he set up were quite unique and felt very “Goldilocks” to me. You don’t easily come across people who have an interesting and appealing sense of beauty that aligns with your own. I briefly spoke to David on the phone during that trip but didn’t meet him until a year later, I’m pretty certain it was in late 2019. We had dinner with him and Brenda. We bonded and spoke about music and him growing in and around Laurel Canyon in the 1960s. He had some great stories and looking back I realise now that I abandoned Georgie that night because I was quite enthralled with what he had to say. I don’t often meet males that I have a lot uncommon with so when I do meet someone who this happens with it seems special.
To cut a long story short, I found out last night that David passed away this week. It appears that he had complications due to a stroke but he also had underlying issues and had also fought a battle with cancer at some point. I wasn’t devastated because our friendship was short lived and never went anywhere. But I must admit that I felt a bit sad about his passing. I sent Brenda a message and will endeavour to get in touch again when her pain has subsided.
My own circle of friends has diminished over the years. This doesn’t in any way mean that I am lonely or don’t like people, to the contrary I love people. The main reason is that I always have a project and as much as I truly love an intense conversation they don’t always happen in social circumstances and the last thing I want to waste my time on is small talk. I want my friendships to be like a strong cup of black coffee. Intense, enjoyable and fully engaging or another analogy might be a piece of music that really takes me somewhere at the moment I am listening to it.
I’m happy with that.
