Seven years ago, a university professor visited me with his album cover of the Beach Boys’ Wild Honey and asked me to create a transom window for his listening room using the design on the cover as inspiration.

Our relationship started as usual: introductions, a tour of my studio, and then finding comfortable seating in my office to share our thoughts about his project.

I’m fortunate that interesting people find me to work with. I owe this to the internet, where one can tell one’s story, and people from all over can choose who they want to work with. By the time they contact me, our relationship is well underway.

As we began understanding how to proceed with his project, our conversation evolved into sharing other interesting parts of our lives.

I found the life of an English professor engaging, especially how he had time to study and share his thoughts with his students.

I shared with him how I was the kid in the back of the class who was always asleep or daydreaming.

“Ah, preserving your creativity.”

It’s so rare that I find someone who understands those of us who are so strongly inner-directed, especially someone who is so ingrained in the system. Even with our overlapping approaches to life, there are similarities, just different reward systems.

It’s disheartening when adaptability and conformity are highly regarded, and original thoughts are suspect. This affects our emotional lives and self-esteem to the point that some are unsure of who they are.