Why I Want to be Friends With Martin Smith
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When you think of a person you’d like to get to know and think for a perfect example, I bet you think of a rock star.
Someone like Bono from U2, Chris Martin from Coldplay, or Kevin Max, probably best known from dc Talk.
Or if you’re not into rock music, maybe you pick an author or speaker like Scott Ginsberg or Billy Graham. And if you’re into politics, you may think of getting to know the recent Nobel price winner, Al Gore.
My pick today would be Martin Smith from the U.K. based rock five-some Delirious?. Who would be yours?
Try before you buy
We want to be friends with great people. People whose minds resonate with ours.
We want to be friends with people we know.
That’s why these people seem like good friends: We have seen into their minds. And we liked what we saw.
In music, it’s the lyrics and the sounds that the composer has crafted out of his or her soul and shared with the world. In books it’s the words, the stories. In politics, it’s the world view.
These people have shown us a lot so that we can like them already before we have even said a word to them. It’s like we know them already.
Limited availability as a major problem
While I would really like to get to know some of the people I listed in this post I know that getting to know famous people is a rare commodity. I’m not the only one who would like to chat with these people.
In fact, I can tell you right now, that apart from Scott Ginsberg the probability of me ever chatting with any of the men listed above is pretty much zero.
I have seen the try before you buy advertisement and liked what I saw, but now the retailer is telling me that these friends are already taken.
How to make yourself as interesting as a rock star
As Ravi Vora wrote recently on this blog, you don’t have to be a rock star to be insanely interesting. Rock stars are regular people too, and a regular person can be just as interesting as a best selling author.
The difference is that in the case of a rock star, author or speaker I already know that the person is interesting whereas with regular people it takes time to see below the surface.
And here comes the trick: To make yourself as desirable as a friend to the kind of people you like to get to know, open up. Do what rock stars do and share a piece of your soul on the Internet. People will come to like you, but unlike rock stars they actually are available to be your friends!
Blogging is a great means for this. Just like e-mailing, chatting or forum posting. I actually even got to know my wife through that kind of mediums and must say that it’s a great way to learn to know a person.
Open up your soul and I might want be your friend too!
Image licenced under Creative Commons
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October 16th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Me or Billy Graham? Jeez, tough call. I think Bill Graham would probably be smarter, but I’d be more fun at karaoke.
Thanks for the link love! And thanks for being my friend, Jarkko.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:56 am
On a sidenote to your post, I just wanted to say that almost anyone can be contacted and a meeting can be arranged. I’ve met some people I thought were only reachable for a selected few, but it’s an illusion. There is always a way to get to talk to people you’ve always wanted to meet. You just need a reason to talk to them - one’s personal desires might not be enough. This is pretty much why we created our own media (www.juoni.net).
Most people don’t want to meet their idols. They just think of it as “cool”, but don’t want it enough to make it happen. If one were to meet one’s idol, one’d go “Whoa, I met my idol.”, and continue dreaming.
A member of a rather famous rock band once said “Never meet your idols. Or you’ll lose the magic.”. I think there’s a good point in this - the artist is well known of what he/she represents, not as well of what he/she is as a person. The artist’s persona might distract the art experience. On the other hand - contrasts and stories are beautiful.
My big dream would be to meet Neil Tennant - the other half of The Pet Shop Boys. And I think that I will do it one day.
Hey, and I want to say that it’s really an honour to have you as a friend. I deeply appreciate what you write about in your blog. This blog is about keeping the faith.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Scott: Thanks to you too! I can’t help but admire the way you make friends with pretty much everyone you meet. Keep it up.
And yeah, comparing you and Billy Graham is a tough task (and that’s what makes it insanely interesting ;)
C2162: You’re right, many things that we think are unlikely can actually be arranged by clever thinking. For example you can get to talk to people by first talking about them ;)
I think that while the idea about “never meeting your idols” might make sense, I think knowing what the person behind the art can also make the art more real. I believe that the art experience flows from the artist’s mind to the listener / viewer. As Stephen King puts it, it’s a sort of telepathy.
And in that sense while really knowing the person would definitely change my interpretation of the art, I think it would make it more real, and that in turn would be more interesting than just anonymous art.
But the reason why I think like this might also be that I don’t really have any real “idols”.
Thanks for being my friend, it means a lot to me!