Houston H. Haynes

I just spent a long weekend at a trade show, hanging around one of the most widely traveled people I’ve ever met. He also happens to be one of the most affable people I’ve ever known – absolutely the most unapologetic optimist the world has ever seen. There have been times when I thought that I might not “make it” in Hollywood simply because I have no talent for indulging dull people. My new friend seemed to handle the task with aplomb, and it seemed to not weigh on him one bit. There were times when I simply sat there in astonishment at his ability to entertain the meanderings of those of obviously meaner temperament – it made me wonder if there were others in the room that observed the same when he and I were in a verbal exchange. So the potential irony was not lost on me, perhaps a saving moment from my own tendencies toward hubris.

But the thing that really stuck with me was his opinion of people in general – his belief that essentially everyone in the world has goodness in them (and he’s been to some really bad places) if they could only be allowed to get to it – to bring it out. I find it surprising that he could have been to all of those places around the globe and still be so unabashedly people-friendly. I can’t walk down the street to the local coffee shop without thinking to myself that the world would be a better place without half of the jerks that crossed my path. Perhaps I’m too much inside my own head and invested with my own ideas of what the world “should be” instead of accepting the environment for what it is and dealing with it as presented. It’s something I’ll be chewing on for a while.