As part of my new Just For Laughs gig, I spent last Friday in Toronto checking up on the Festival event there. While catching up on notes and thoughts during a solo lunch, I was spotted through the restaurant window by CBC-TV exec Anton Leo, who popped in to join me.
"You alone?" he asked.
"Nope," I replied before paraphrasing a famous Woody Allen line, "just having lunch with somebody I actually admire and respect."
He laughed (no easy feat coaxing one from a comedy exec)...but I wasn't kidding.
I was sincere. And serious.
(Warning: Here comes one of "Those Statements")
These days, given the proliferation of social networking and easy, incessant electronic access and communication, I find that people are afraid of being alone.
Now there's a big difference between being "alone" and being "lonely," but the desperate dreariness of suffering the latter has overshadowed the importance and benefit of enjoying the former.
I gotta admit that I love being alone, especially on the road. Being alone gives me a chance to reflect, to think, and to be open to my surroundings and environment...which usually leads to solutions to problems and--even better!--brand honking new ideas.
On Saturday night, with my kids out and about and my wife out of town on a bike marathon, I had to take in three different Just For Laughs shows. While centralized in the same part of town, they were still a distance away from each other, so instead of battling the construction-pocked gridlock of Montreal streets in my car on in a cab, I walked.
What a pleasure! I saw things I never would've otherwise noticed. I watched quietly as a kid handing out flyers for our Zoofest event tried to explain what it is to a middle-aged guy coming out of a Babe Ruth concert. I saw people being upsold at an ice-cream bar and heard three unique appeals for spare change. Best of all, I figured out a way to package and sell a block of Steve Martin special event tickets that were released back into Festival hands.
I dig the quiet. I dig being alone with my own thoughts. What's more, I think it's imperative that social networking be counter-balanced by individual solitude.
Which may be easier said than done, because to benefit from it, not only to you have to like being with yourself, you also have to actually like yourself.
And therein is a whole other kettle of screwed-up psychological fish, best handled by other, more cerebral, bloggers.
So this week's lesson? Cut the cord. Take some time for yourself, with yourself. Don't be afraid to take in a movie, or a show, or just a walk, with you.
You may discover something incredible.
At very worst, you may find yourself a new friend.
(P.S. If you're too young to understand the musical reference of this post's title, click here or here.)