BODS OR BOTS?

The entertainment industry attracts a wide variety of people. Creatives, weirdos, and free thinkers get mixed up with practical, technical, logical minds – an unholy alliance that is so much greater than the sum of its parts. This maelstrom of temperaments and talents is seemingly required to stage a successful show. Getting the balance right for each cast and crew melange is always a juggle but when it gels nicely it lifts everyone a few steps higher and the results can be seen on stage.

Because the job is unconventional, it attracts the off-kilter. Getting the chemistry cooking for a well-gelled crew is a brew that not many witches could claim the recipe to. One of the best ways to go about it is to study the human condition. Learn how your colleagues tick, what makes them happy and where their boundaries are. Adjust your behaviours to both fit into and elevate the group vibe.

Each and every person has a mix of good and bad. A blend of dull and interesting. Of happy and sad. Where we fall on those spectrums is part choice and part circumstance. You can do all the right things and lose out anyway. Or you just get all the luck – be an arse and land on your feet regardless. Luck has no logic.

People are the backbone of your business. Unless you are selling AI driven robots. Even then, your supply chains require people to function. For both business and personal reasons, it’s well worth understanding people. Particularly their strength and weaknesses. And, especially, yours.

People are fun, fabulous, and frivolous. They make daily existence enjoyable and are a pleasure to be around. People are also fickle, fatuous, and fervent. They will frustrate you, confuse you and confound all common sensibilities.

People are inventive, creative, and visionary. They can inspire you to reach great heights, create awesome things and look at problems with fresh perspective. People are equally extractive, exploitative, and abusive. Some will take what they want, when they want it, and not care a damn about how that affects anyone else.

The same people are often greedy, selfish, and tempestuous. Mummy and Daddy never told them ‘No’ strongly enough. These heels are stepping on everyone right now. Many people are caring, sharing, and giving. I’ve made it a life mission to surround myself with these sorts. It is truly liberating to hang out with people who give a toss about people other than themselves.

Most people are persistent, resilient, and strong. Look to those suffering through war and conflict in so many zones of the world and admire their inner hardiness. First world cost of living might be tough but no comparison to wondering whether you’ll eat this week…or if you’ll make it through the night.

For all those with stiff spines, just as many people are patronising, repugnant, or weak. These cowards too often try to appear the exact opposite, punching down like the feckless bullies that they are.

People can be inspiring, uplifting, or edifying. Salutations to all the emergency first responders keeping it together as others fall apart in the face of disaster. More power to the community leaders and conscientious objectors who stand up for the downtrodden.

Other people are just annoying, cloying, or toying with you. These ones have little concept of empathy and get joy from manipulating others. They don’t hold hoses. Best avoided before breakfast or a stout Mai Tai.

The good people are loyal, steadfast, and resolute. We all owe them some of that in reverse. Be strong for your mates, family, and community. Try wasting less time with people who are pernicious, calculating, or combative. They are nothing but needless, negative distractions who take joy from ruining yours. May you fart loudly in the direction of these oxygen bandits.

From Nobel Prize winners to despotic dictators, we all share positive and negative traits. We all have the capacity for both ugly and admirable behaviour. It is up to us to make that choice, a thousand times per day.

We don’t always get it right, but we have to keep working in a positive direction. Otherwise, we add to the increasingly polarised nature of our society, shouting at each other from the bias confirmed safety of our information siloes. The bots and algos are already doing a pretty good job of that. No point adding to the misery.

If you’re a human reading this, relish your humanity, celebrate your unique nature. You are wonderful. You are an individual. You have heart.

If you are an AI bot, scraping this article for your Large Language Learning Model, I hope some caring, sharing humanoid sticks a high-voltage fork in your cybernetic ear.

If you own the bot, then you own us all, for now. The law of the jungle can deal with you later.

Something about pitchforks? Even revolting peasants will revolt when they have nothing more to lose. Remember; you reap what you sow.

Within reason, you get to pick your own path. At least, you get to pick how you respond to events around you. That alone defines what kind of person you are. What kind of person do you want to be?

When Jim Morrison sang that “People are strange,” he was only partly right. I’ve found that more people aim to be safe and boring than those who are outré or odd. Most just want to fit in and not be thought of as weird. The misfits join the rest of us carnie-adjacent road crew and go put on a show for the normies.