Something about this guy Zander bothered me from the start. We met at an NLP class filled with the usual assortment of therapists and social workers and the types of restless characters who just want to learn everything they can. He was introduced to me as someone I should meet; that we would have a lot in common. He read as one of what I often refer to as, “soft hippies”, people who speak softly, move slowly and spend a lot of time doing yoga, poking people with needles and humming. Some of my friends are soft hippies, so I wasn’t going to write him off for that, but there is an odd attraction to the genre for people who play the part but are very, very broken. I had the misfortune of knowing one who studied chinese medicine and performed acupuncture and massage, as well as stealing from the people around him and treating women like chew toys.

Zander didn’t strike me as being quite that type of broken and he had all of the credentials of an interesting human, including the usual healing practices, travel and being certified as some kind of sufi cleric. It was for this reason that, driving out to lunch together that first day, I was at first intrigued by his completely flat, lifeless responses. He didn’t seem to be excited about much of anything, and maintained the ever so slightly bitter twinge of orange juice just over the line. By the ride home I was bored by his holier than thou attitude and had pretty much written him off until I happened to ask the right question and got his recent bio. He had just traveled through the US and southeast asia and then spent a long time in Africa holed up and writing. He returned to New York to have the tough city kick him into gear, but after enough time being kicked around he decided that it wasn’t helping much, abandoned what he had there, and came back to Austin. It was an almost dot by dot outline of my own potential travel route through the next year or two of my life, and I was fascinated to hear his thoughts on the adventure.

I sent him an email a few days later asking if I could take him out to lunch in exchange for his take on his travels. He first offered to trade me a lunch for shooting a video of one of his talks (knowing I was a filmmaker). I was a little miffed, but I’ve learned that most people don’t realize the many hours it takes to set up a shoot and cut footage, let alone the cost of equipment. I wrote him back and this time he ignored the lunch discussion completely and instead suggested I come to his workshop on, “finding yourself”. I was furious. The interaction had gone from a friendly lunch of peers to a sales pitch that implied that I was a lost sheep.

Sure, I was angry at the implication that I didn’t already see the Buddha, but I think I was more upset that the friendly exchange had morphed into a sales pitch. What later intrigued me about my response, however, was that he was doing exactly the kind of thing that I can imagine myself suggesting to a friend. “Why don’t you take advantage of your experiences and try to put together a class?”

In my own sphere I have to struggle with the same requests I just complained about with Zander. People frequently ask me to lunch to pick my brain for everything I’ve spent years learning about filmmaking. If I was a lawyer, no one would expect me to offer that lunch for free. The people asking me for free knowledge are rarely interested in hiring me later, so there isn’t even that incentive. At the same time I feel like a jerk refusing, or asking for money, if there is even a modicum of friendly rapport.

I remember when someone I thought of as a friend called me after a stint apart and, after my initial excitement at hearing from him, I realized he was only calling to try to get me to his band’s show. I found out that another friend got the same call around the same time, and we both felt like we had been cheated or let down. Neither one of us went to the concert. But then, how else could this guy have rallied people to his show? How do you get the word out if talking to your friends becomes gauche?

Where is this detesting of money leading? This sense that life skills and hard earned knowledge have no value? When it comes to music, it’s even worse. At a time when no one buys CDs, DVDs, or other tangible forms of art that were once socially accepted means of making a financial contribution, passing the hat or asking fans or friends to promote a live performance are all that’s left.

I’m now convinced that the safest option is to learn how to dig holes. No one denies that what you are doing is “work”, and no one is going to ask you to come by for lunch and till their flower bed for free. Years of hauling heavy camera equipment through the mud, poring over books or staring at a computer screen is invisible. Shoveling is right in people’s faces. I have friends who actually do shovel dirt for a living and, if anything, clients feel so bad for watching them work that they not only pay them, but tip them and give them Christmas gifts. Maybe if I start now I can be in line for the free cookies by December…

As always, photos link to photographers’ flicker sites