I have to post this now because it underlines a situation that comes up in everything I do.
I'm talking about collaboration and situations where by you help someone simply because you find it interesting or natural. People then feel inclined to help you back - but you are not motivated by the hope of reciprocation and have no guarantee of it, nor any idea of comparative values of the actions.
I find this kind of social behavior to be normal.
On the other hand, modern society is dominated by an ideology of competition. Like the idea of game theory.These ideas stem from a concept that social life revolves around competition with payoffs.
This idea is so dissonant with actual behavior that people who live by it seem like automatons driven by aliens. The best example of this are networkers.
The difference between the theory and the practice is that in the real world society has a structure, a hierarchy which is imposed by people who value power. Networkers try to base their social interactions on climbing the ladder of society, seeing it as beneficial. They quickly become immersed in it and are unable to see how it eventually consumes all their interactions.
Some networkers live in very closed circles but most inevitably come up against contrary human situations like destructive relationships, obsessions, the need to be liked and placing friendship over greater gain - with spectacular results.*
To people who live by collaboration and passions and all that ... let's call them ... I don't know ... honest, networkers stand out like a sore thumb and are deeply offensive. Networkers are blissfully unaware of this as they are essentially brainwashed by an ideology. An honest person who runs into multiple networkers feels like they are in the famous 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Really, read that link, it's only for a paragraph or two under plot.
If you live the honest life then people will be nice to you. You don't even have to 'call in favors' (itself a concept of competition) it all just seems to happen naturally and is assumed as ongoing. The more you force it, the worse the situation becomes. Early Daoists were always going on about this. You just get on with things and don't do anything bad, then the rest forms by itself.
Often the process shapes you. I spent a lot of time here on the music scene, so much so that I got to know everyone and became more involved. But at the outset I only went to all those shows because I like to watch bands. I did almost six years with no thought of doing anything on the scene myself.
Finally, honest people are aware that the machinations of people with power tend to upset this but their aversion to the pod people runs so deep that they tend to cut their losses and stick with sanity.
I think the essence of indie culture, and of all life, is intuitive and collaborative. At any rate, it is the way to go at this current point in time. It is collaborative in that the people involved just share in the experience.
*Isaac Mao's Sharism and idea of social capital is an unintentionally hilarious example of someone so far gone that he can only interpret the world through game theory-esque ideology. It's just so amazing, all those people being nice to each other for no apparent gain.
** Someone I once knew here was such a helpless networker that they told me these two stories within an hour of each other and made no connection at all. Firstly, they were distraught to the point of tears at having been cut off completely by a group of friends they thought they were close to. Secondly, the previous weekend they had ditched those friends outside of a club that was full when a complete stranger (a rich one) invited them only to cut in and join his VIP table - on condition of dumping the others.
*** An artist "collaborates" with an ad agency on a campaign to sell a soft drink. They get paid good money for it. This is not collaborative in the sense we defined as being in opposition to a theory of competition. It is part of that theory, the goals are outside the project itself, in creating capital and teaming up to 'win' - it is mutually exploitative.
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