When you disagree but are asked to work together

A friend offered a query for his creative peers, but you don't need to be in a creative field for this to apply. So many feelings get involved with that process, though, it's kind of the perfect crucible for this type of question. It's a question of ethics and allotting one's reserves, and it goes something like this:

Yep, it's like going into a dark tunnel, sure.
A friend you've known for years offers you a paying gig. It's a solid opportunity. You've known the person like half your life, so it would be cool to expand that through collaboration. It's a freelance job, and you'll be working together in some capacity. But while they're not a vile hate-monger, boy, do you not see eye-to-eye on some political matters. And as everyone knows, Politics has practically replaced Religion in matters of passionate conviction these days, to say nothing of what passes for discussion. So: take the job?

Inspired to reply, and then thinking it might be a cool discussion to pass along, the Be Chill, Cease ill on that count goes thusly:


You can probably do it. Know why? IF said friend understands how you feel differently- and for many of you, it might be hard to call you 'friend' and NOT know...but thinks you've got the chops, are reliable, and an all-right enough guy or gal to offer you a break...that counts for something. Mutual benefit of the doubt on differences. Just entering into evidence that speculation..not judging anyone. :-D If said difference doesn't have to enter the personal space, well awesome, cause it is, agreed, occasionally venomous. And some outlet for two fine, basically ethical friends to have discussions might even be welcome (it's agreeing upon the set of facts, these days, is it not, that is the issue?), but said friend would also probably understand a neat sidestep of "well, I think you're an intelligent, impassioned person, but I'd focus on giving our project our all and skip that exhausting subject, if ya don't mind" (the 'ya' is important, friend:-D)..Maybe flip a coin on it? Good luck.


There's so much upsetting stuff, and I've read we process 5 x the amount of information we did thirty years ago (I'm more than happy to limit my time on the 'Net for various reasons) so it can create quite a trainwreck in our nervous systems. I can dig it if you're concerned said friend will drift too often into that outlet out of a feeling of you becoming more of a confidante from long hours of collaboration. AS a writer, you get the advantage of understanding a bit how people with differing opinions, come to them, without having to embrace those that are stridently against your own ethics. Reason, we're finding, is tied first to feeling, then following that in its character. But my point was, so much BS out there and Anger, I find, is very hard to effuse in proportion once unleashed (kinda Love, too).

Like, when we go off, it's kinda the cumulative effect of all the things that tick us off, and so, embracing it can cause more strident reactions than we might intend. But you're a man of resolve, and if you have the reserves to avoid pressing the RAge button over the occasional annoyance, go for this! And honestly, if not, don't, because your peace counts for something, too. If they know you well at all, they may well have the prudence to realize they should steer away from certain querulous engagements, so, it's a matter of personal trust as well as assesment of and faith in your own reserves and qualities. WE do need unity beyond our differences, but you individually cannot hope to shoulder that burden for ALL- it's a gut-check, rather, of whether we have the strength to lift a given weight before us at a given time. If failure would be too costly, perhaps then we must decline certain challenges. But the willingness to take that chance when it is not a fool's errand but actually has a hope of a positive outcome- that is a sign of strength.

Our fears sometimes keep us from knowing the weight of that which lies before us, and sometimes our boldness makes us reckless. Courage and discernment must make friends and accomplish life together!

Then I'd step back from that equation and ask myself if I'd find the creative assignment engaging enough to warrant the investment.
I'm having a similar situation, with less guarantee it'll be remunerative in any fashion. These are the times that try the souls of folk, but while we might not always win, we can always learn and grow.

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An adolescent devil's diary

So I sat meditating, lookin’ for places where my creative windows to the world might produce a common yard in which the ideas could play.

I made it through questioning why it is I’d do comic strip stories of imaginary devils and angels and our ideas on who is assigned to say what in the course of us making our free will. I made Wade Von Grawbadger a birthday card, because he likes them and the idea could make its debut in a way intended to be executed in a light manner, just as I would hope to be, if ever my death sentence comes up. I sent him a little devil to come celebrate with the devil on his own shoulder, maybe discuss cook up some birthday ideas.

I meditated on how the devil (Mordeal?) might debate the angel as they work together to result in a boy saying “I Love Me,” in the mirror.

And along with many more ideas, and many simple ways I’ve begun entertaining my people---may they ever be more expansive---I pictured in recent days my set of angel and devil sitting with your set of angel and devil, reminiscing as though sitting on the hilltop between my trailer and yours, the foot-worn path a half a mile to the side of Darcy Laney’s house. They sit there on the stumps and fallen logs, laughing and arguing about how things once were, how in their way, they forever will be.

That place where they meet, I savor a while yet, knowing I can go up there and listen. While sitting peacefully, I saw that I needed to continue my story for you. Enough of the toothache returned to make me say:

I Noticed how my belly snuck out after a month of less and uneven exercise, so I chose yoga for a while after I’d eaten, vowing to change my habits back to some regular structure. After all, I’m planning to start getting out more, so that’s going to take the same uncorking of energy necessary to do everything else I imagine I’m obliged to try.

Just like the pain was there to remind me of others’ pain, I noted how long it’d been since I’d felt sick again. I was pleased to find myself busy adding happiness to the days since. I noted how the circumstances in which I’d struggled with wild ego and gloom repeated myself, but I was pleased with the alternative way I’d spent my time; this was one more night when I wanted to go play the songs among the strangers. But I’d written about three birthdays, so it fit well to birth my devils and angels into illustration history as a birthday card. At least I had the President’s Address to the Senate and Marc Kane to keep me company, playing her game, diagnosing and healing wild animals, until the time came to color it. Then she easily had the ideas to create a complementary finish, as we both did one page, with an additional punch line saved until the morning, another page with the angel and her birthday wish.

My devil, you could say, insisted I go out with the guitar; but simply walking around later in the Mardi Gras night at least kept my promise to go play in the Gaslamp Quarter. I see how we might want to plan not to miss St. Patty’s celebration; for some reason, I enjoyed most of what I wanted from our window---oh, but not really all you can have, right? It’s good to take a few minutes just do that, even if you don’t feel like paying for a ticket to get closer to the action before midnight. You cannot beat actually swapping beads and cheers or even a hug. It’s free, breathing, present people to enjoy.

Not that there’s no time and place for the guitar to come along; it’s going to have to come out again, bringing its songs with it, before it is like a neighbor who moves around the corner and becomes nigh invisible. But as yet, this is a week filled up with going out opportunities, like Wednesday at Hennessey’s or Friday at the Marquee. Just take along the drawing pad to keep the sketching going and enjoy the music coming from others! It gives the best clues as to why one would want to play songs, which to me is a favorable if selfish result. I like concentrating my time into packets of performance, opened and shared by many, carrying with it illumination for a set of clues included in each person’s identification of personal culture.

Wednesday and Friday, we just go out to support a new-forming friend as he debuts his first song collection via album. In between times, we’ll find permission to take the urgency towards summoning our own catalog. I have to circulate my attention to the arts towards the formation and success of others’, for this is what I know and wish to reveal to myself, in a life where success in numerous endeavors across seemingly diverse talents can factor in to me discovering better sides of myself, surrendered to happiness. As it is said, our freewill takes what is and adds its reinterpretation.

Myself? I’ve been in these circumstances before. They have all along been waiting for the right batch of seeds; something always is grown in mind, yet parasite and drought have curtailed my garden, which yet produced plenty. But I must farm something for many; at the very least, I increase the chances of another encountering plenty in someone, regardless of their actual level of appreciation at that point.

So these are familiar circumstances, in the sense that, after much time on the trail, you become familiar with the lay of land that resembles what you have met, and you are aware of relationships between things you should find. You begin, hopefully, to apprehend the path of least resistance. In doing so, you create what you need in a rhythm. Healing is no different.

Abundant friendship, security, and health become the shelter you must maintain in the face of the elements.

As long as you can see what you want to build, as long as you can diagnose the infection or injury---as long as you can reduce the stress that makes the unknown uncomfortable, you can accomplish whatever exercise or operation you find necessary.

I want to build such a shelter on a place with a view, where several paths can lead me in the discovery of awareness, and where I can return, to choose, another day, another trail into Forever.


I left off our story in a place in our lives when it split ways with us. That hillside above your trailer park, the stump where we would part company as late as possible, is where I will begin the second d’n’a story I decide to draw: the first one’s only about the struggle to say “I love me.” That’s where I pick up in this second installment of My Life Story, which I guess is yet another companion to the e-mails and messages I will raid for better uses for sitting still.

I really got into the idea of language as a means of finding an identity we chose for its freedom. This is no doubt why you and I used to speak freely about our various sexual impulses, with unabashed humor, why you and I would speak of the world as it could be, were everyone to logically decide to live in a type of anarchy that depended on downing no one. Perhaps we would all prove capable in our understanding of science, philosophy, logic, and the arts and enjoy the plentitude of cooperation. Already the ingredients for a shining world of Man began to assemble in our conversations, as did social criticisms, however crudely gleaned from precocious perceptions. With a guiding force interested in our own subdued hubris and the development of talents that might benefit others, there is no telling what we who succeeded a little might dream to become. We developed our social criticisms along with our humor, while releasing our dissatisfaction with ourselves, translated as a dissatisfaction with our surroundings.

Perhaps without an example of someone wielding greater power modestly, we settled for our rueful assessments of the powers that be in human authority, without understanding or appreciating how society and politics operated. After all, we were conclusively outsiders, and so we could naturally identify with the misfit speaking for the everyday man. If I could have just stuck to such rude assessments, perhaps the first pathway towards stardom as a comedian would’ve remained clear. But without the distractions of physical fitness and the pursuit of accolades, separate we would remain, in our use of our time, striving for no recognition yet implicitly taunted by some entitlement. Perhaps we could not see the positivity in the achievements of civilization around us there in Georgia, because we felt separated from their view point by serious questions about the division generated by the genuine mysteries of existence. People accepted such things as they came from a pulpit or they agreed they were makin their own mess and that was their business.

There is a sentimental attachment to the appearances of simpler times, a very Southern preoccupation with holding knowledge of one’s regional heritance. It is acceptable to express ideas about decency and right and opinions judging the acts of people, and it is acceptable to spend much of one’s days preserving a holographic past.
Our heritage and our world of reference was good enough, no matter what kind of war between the states was waged. Perhaps it was somehow more acceptable to deal with than federally guided integration. But I felt it was obvious, something new had to come along, though I would apply much of my wits to trying to identify and talk to my very typical Southern parents. It’s not like they never took me to see the zoo or the circus!

I summarize, I set down the social space, without narrowing the gaze yet to many individual days. Perhaps when I am a great enough artist, when I realize what goes into such a fine writer, I will relax and let the days speak for themselves. As it was, except whenever philosophizing, enjoying a movie or rocking out, I was very lucky to enjoy any of the multitude of opportunities for quietude living out in the country. I think I was happiest when, from the silence, the essence of a story would come forward, and so I would stalk the woods alone filling the air with stories to as late of an age as I could manage.

After you left, I first became rather more doubtful of myself, before my Dad could afford surgery for my cyst; that is a day I look forward to telling. After another particularly gloomy day, where music whispered it would be there for me always, I gradually came out of my awkwardness and painful shyness long enough to wreck new havoc, so long as I had an orderly activity off which to play, i.e. reduce in meaning to my desire to gather a laugh, at least for myself.

I still had not discovered how much you could do towards building the mind/body connection; I was still filled with rude tomfoolery yet, and, tortured by my massive progress that I could share with no one, was still as yet ashamed to fart in front of others. Which you must be willing to do, if you’re going to exercise and get those toxins out in the first place! Fart proudly.

At this point, I’ve tended towards taking the images that lingered across the days, expressing the gradually held developments of my observations. Perhaps I’ve tilled the soil for some of the individual days to take root and again grow so that we might, I don’t know, cook them up and pressure can them, let’s say.