the power of strangers.

t h e   P O W E R   o f   S T R A N G E R S .

A friend of mine over IM the other day about her burgeoning yoga classes without realizing it no doubt said something offhand that left me thinking about it ever since. Simply she wrote ~

i need strangers to know that i exist

We were talking about her website and the Facebook and how though only friends of hers had bothered to 'like' her page in fact none of those friends had yet to come to a single class (umm, myself included). I think of this as I get random suggestions or invites or such to like someone's photography or artsy or whatever page (I don't usually bother). Not that there's anything wrong with that. Sending out a suggestion that is. But I wonder do they not realize the uselessness?

I too in fact did that a couple of years ago. Sent out an invitation to a group of friends on the Facebook (I did at least take the time to handpick a couple dozen or so) to like my music page. Within a couple of minutes though of sending it sitting on the couch afternoon sun streaming in I quite literally felt sick to my stomach. And really really stupid. Cos I realized the uselessness of it. Right then at that instant. That it was not going to do me a bit of good if some guy I happen to work with listens to my music and likes it or doesn't.

And I do not mean to categorically dismiss small random acts of magic.

But the two key words in that phrase are 'small' and (more importantly) 'random.' The odds that Dude X from work happens to know someone who happens to know someone high up the food chain in the record business are fairly small and (if it were to be the case) would be very very random indeed.

Not to say impossible. Just statistically about as likely as me being able to fly to the moon by building a spacecraft in my garage.



So back to what she said. About strangers. And needing them to know she exists.



That is the reality in that one little sentence. It definitely takes more work. To get strangers to know you exist. It's easy to send out a silly Facebook invite and maybe a little ego-enhancing rub to get a bunch of (I'll argue meaningless) likes. And thereby definition of 'easy' by extension fairly useless. It's much harder to think bigger. To find ways to reach out to complete strangers.

I don't yet know how to do that for certain. But just as certain I need to with this music I must write if I want it to support me (I do). As does she if she wants her yoga classes to support her (she does).



I'll need strangers to know I exist.