We are a social animal, power only exists in a social sense, we have to work in groups.
If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.
Real action and true helpfulness are perhaps the ultimate charm.
You can't disengage yourself from that game if you are completely unaware of what people out there might be doing, you're just going to be tripped up, you're going to find yourself continually at a disadvantage.
In some ways, the documentary form is a kind of trap and so is societal norms.
As a writer you know you don't have to deal with a lot of the crap that most people deal with, the political things. Every couple of years when your book comes out then you have to go into these fights with the publisher and the publicist and that's it.