Here I was, having a pleasant, middle-of-the-night dream in conversation with a woman I had just met at the conference when word arrived that the great man wanted us all to meet. This great man, nameless, was a film producer and slightly older than I. We gathered in some sort of general-purpose space on folding chairs arranged in some approximation of a circle. And there were hand-outs.
When I arrived, my new friend was already seated -- not on one of the folding chairs, but on a small bench which had been pulled up to the circle as a consequence of a shortage in the number of chairs. Indeed, it appeared that the last spot available for me was the other end of that same small bench (which made me feel that I was perhaps seeming to dedicate a disproportionate amount of time to being in the company of this particular woman).
I sat down, received the hand-out, listened in on some of the conversation. From my left, there appeared a colleague from my employment (both of whom shall remain nameless in this essay). He was uncharacteristically dressed in a suit and tie; he chided me on appearing before the great man in jeans and a T-shirt (even though the T-shirt was absolutely brand new and we had only just been summoned at short notice). He chided me on this presumed lack of respect as he himself was walking out of the gathering to go elsewhere.
The group, although I characterized them all as analysts, was actually quite diverse. To my right, for example, there was a college professor sharing stories about his students.
The great producer arrived, sat down, shared some introductory small talk, and then got to business. It seems that he was searching for someone to take charge of a portion of his assets. The hand-out included questions about our background, interests, and experiences with the implication that one of us might be his choice for this position. I had made some notes on my paper but the sense of the group was to collect all our information into a master list for the great man to look at.
One of the men from around the circle (I don't know who he was, although he was obviously a professional person with whom I was acquainted) brought this master copy of the hand-out to me, assuring me that he had already added most of my information. I was surprised, and a little insulted, to discover that he had taken some light conversation about movies to be representative of my history and interest in film. I felt the need to begin adding the titles of some of the much greater films which I had also watched, mostly in my living room on DVD.
As for my ideas for the producer's financial assets, I had written on my hand-out the observation that all he wanted was a standard service of all the banks. I tried to copy my comment to the master list, revising the wording a bit to have less chance of seeming insulting.
As I wrote on the paper, I realized that the great man had little interest in what I was offering. Certainly I have some interest in movies and a little experience in dealing with banks, but in neither area could I be considered much of an expert. Nor could any of the others in that circle. Why would he be offering us this opportunity to become his investment coordinator? And why would he be asking potential investment coordinators about their history with film?
Clearly, this film producer in my dream was not so much interested in investment strategy. What he was looking for was someone with whom he could converse, someone to whom he could relate. One might even say that he was hoping to hire a professional friend, in a sense.
I woke up with a strong sense of dissonance. Even though this producer seemed to be a reasonably normal person (at least for one in his profession), I had no desire to be his hired confidant either in film or in finance. I have no particular reason to take on that role and it isn't a strong fit with my natural interests.
In the dream, the film producer was hoping to cast a part which he had written. And so it is in actual reality as well. We often try to cast others in roles we ourselves invent, and sometimes they agree to play that part for some time. But they have their own lives and aspirations to write their own plays, and they leave us. The only lasting dramas are those rare true collaborations in which we write our own and each others' parts in concert.