I was reading an article over at the Art of Hustle and it resonated with something I’ve been thinking recently: how am I unique?

Okay, sure, my name is Smokie. I have blue hair. I’m a staunch secularist in the buckle of the Bible belt. I have lots of experience with small farmers and exotic animal owners. I have a lot of things that are unique about me, but what really sets me apart from other web designers?

I’ve also been thinking about my continual dislike of networking. Or at least networking that most career professionals tell you you need to be doing. For me, networking is just bonding with people whom I share common interests. Making friends, as it were. I’m fond of saying I’m misanthropic.

Well, I guess I’m more asocial than misanthropic, because I don’t seek any sort of enemity or hold contempt of humans, any more than I would feel contempt towards poison ivy for making me break out. I’m more of a philosophical pessemist in the vein of Immanuel Kant (“Of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made”) than I am the traditional misanthrope. I currently don’t believe in true altruism, but I also don’t find the lack to be disturbing or even unexpected for the animals we are.

Whoa whoa whoa, you’re saying, how can you be…whatever you want to call it when you’re running a business that literally is about working with people to build things for people? Well, I see my job as more of a means to an end. If I do my job correctly, then my clients get connected with their customers and I can walk away knowing my job is done. I want to build the tools that enable people to not be forced to work with other people.

See, it all works out.