This post is inside baseball for the unitiated and will only be fully appreciated by those that know me well.

I’m usually good at focusing on something interesting about people I socialize with. And I enjoy seeking out a bridge, a common thread, some shared experiences – be it leisure or professional – with just about everyone I meet. At my age, it’s not too difficult to identify commonalities with folks I interact with and I’ll build our short or long relationship from there. While some might call this social engineering, and, to a degree, at least occupationally speaking, it is, but being professionally friendly and a “smooth operator” is in my opinion part of the gig in almost every kind of business, including mine.

Even if I prefer the creative process over the formal and financial aspects of being a freelance artist, there is just no denying that putting on a smile and a little obsequious behavior will often lead to something beneficial – for all involved. It’s the lubrication that keeps the machine wheels turning and essentially what being human is all about. Everyone wants something.

Conversely, when I have to interact intensely – over long periods of time – together with people that I have zero in common with or what we do share is no longer able to bridge the wide gaps between us, I get easily bored and ultimately, irritated and frustrated.

With folks that I have so little in common with – people so superficial and lacking depth or substance, I end up feeling like I’m being sucked into an event horizon and eventually their soulless, eternal black hole of nothingness – a place so empty, every breath feels like it could be the last. After a while, my cortisol levels seem to shoot through my veins like fiery lava, causing stress and anxiety. These interactions inevitably break the creative spell which will soon put me in a fight or flight mode. And as we are living in this singularly peculiar times, neither of those choices is very simple to make. But, as so aptly put in The Big Lebowski; the Dude abides. I’m on top of it, figuring out my next moves. Literally and figuratively.

Not sure where I discovered this wall. It’s definitely going to be part of my Resurfaced series. I call it “Black Hole Blues”.