Conversational Stimulation

In a book called Friendship by Joel Epstein, a really good book by a regular Joe who is a writer and observer, and just an account of his own observations about his own friendships, he says that in order to maintain a friendship, there needs to be conversation, and in order for conversation to happen, each friend must have something intelligent to contribute. That's why it's always a good idea to have several interests . . . to know something about pop culture, fashion, books, dogs, what have you. I suppose the same applies to a blog. If you only have one thing to say and you just keep repeating that one thing over and over, you will have a very boring blog with no readers. This is for me a huge motivation to read a wide variety of books. I also watch my fair share (maybe more than that) of movies. As a result, there are few subjects on which I have no opinion whatsoever. Take chickens, for example. I have no personal experience with chickens. I only know chickens because of Hollywood, where actors (Jon Heder in Napoleon Dynamite) carry them around upside down. I asked a friend with chicken and farm experience about this, and she said that no one who knows anything about chickens would carry them upside down. So that was a conversation about chickens. I can also speak somewhat intelligently about the deplorable conditions in North Korea, thanks to a bunch of books I read on the subject. Sometimes, I guess it's not such a bad idea to spread yourself thin.