A conversation that came up at fizit’s place over dinner became a theme for the night (I carried the conversation with me to Dale and Mike’s party and then to Claire and Benno’s).
I often say I seek out passionate people. I know I come across as arrogant and intimidating sometimes – I don’t mean to, but it’s what happens – and sometimes I have a problem with this. Certainly I don’t like hurting other people’s feelings or making them feel small. That said, I do crave and seek out the company of people who sparkle, people who are similarly driven and ambitious. But it’s not just that, because ambitious actors are sometimes intensely shallow and dull. What I’m after is cultural creatives. I want to be part of this decade’s Bloomsbury crowd or political movers and shakers who will make a mark.
I said this to Kim at Claire and Benno’s and she was surprised that I saw her as driven, but she’s someone who sings and is in a salsa band and works as a librarian with non-English speaking students and is vibrant and fabulous and is learning Portuguese so she can travel…
And Mike, Dale’s partner, is similar. He’s an artist, he’s got all this amazing work hanging on the walls of their fabulous apartment. And Dale definitely has that drive: one of the people last night at his party was the great-granddaughter of E.W.Cole and we instantly started talking about an exhibition we could do with the information she gave us.
When I talk about having done Theatresports with Andrew Denton when I was 15 or having been to uni with Ben Oquist and Tanya Plibersek, I don’t feel like I’m ‘name-dropping’; I kind of feel like I’m saying, ‘Look, these people had the same opportunities I had and they’ve made so much more of themselves than me’. I feel kind of inadequate when I’m thinking about how I haven’t used those connections at all, that these people would not have a clue who I am. It’s also just my life: because I do seek out creative people and as a journalist, I interview them, I have these encounters I can discuss. So I’ve interviewed Homi Bhabha and Hugh Jackman; I have great stories to tell; they wouldn’t know who I *was* (although, again, I should take up opportunities I’m presented with and rarely do. Bhabha suggested we keep in touch and I was too intimidated.)
I adore my high-energy achiever friends like xammy, rocket scientist-turned-documentary maker, always on the go, always on the phone. I love my quiet achiever friends like Matt, astrophysicist and writer. I’m also learning a whole lot of new stuff about gentleness and silence and other ways of being through people like Matt and other new gentle, beautiful souls I’m meeting like Doug, who is creative, an artist, a massage therapist whose ‘ambition’ has nothing to do with the physical world and everything to do with the spiritual path and enlightenment through pleasure as far as I can tell (and I’m all in favour).
So, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s only one way to do this. I’m not judging anyone. I have to somehow find a balance between seeking out the people who make my life shine, who thrill and fulfill me, while learning not to blunder into statements that make it sound like I think that my way of being is any better than any of the choices other people have made – because that’s not what I’m trying to do at all. And of course, chances are, this post reads like yet another one of those blunders, even while I try to think this through.