Accidental Creative

Try, Try, Try

A little nugget from the toolbox:
"What am I really trying to do?"

This is a simple question that I’ve learned to ask myself often. Usually, when I’m frustrated, out of ideas, empty, experiencing dissonance, pulling my hair out or just generally bored with my work it’s because I don’t really know what I’m trying to do or I’m not being fully honest about my intentions.

It’s impossible to be effective without a sense of focus. We can be languishing in the muck and mire, but not making any progress. Simply stopping to ask the question, "what am I really trying to do here?" can relieve a lot of pain and wasted effort. (I know that the cynics among us will scoff at this simple advice, but it’s what we do that’s important, not what we know or how complicated our methods are.)

This advice applies to higher-order problems as well. It’s a good idea to take regular pauses and think about your life as a whole. "What am I really trying to do?" can help you choose the right activities and conversations for the day and help you hone in on the critical stuff.

Paranoia

I have a phrase on the whiteboard in my office:

"Paranoia undoes greatness." 

It’s been there for about a year and is a constant reminder that anytime we spend a significant amount of time worrying about losing what we’ve got, it’s quite likely that it’s already slipping through our fingers anyway.

I can name many instances of "backward-looking" behavior killing momentum and thwarting progress. This can be especially rampant in the "up or out" world of organizations. (Pay, prestige or process - we’re all motivated by one or a combination of these.) Organizational paranoia discourages the risk-taking required for innovative behavior. A "group-think" mentality sets in, along with a sense of invincibility, and where there was once promise there is now dissonance.

This plays out in our personal creating as well, no? My paranoia about the response to a piece of work will inhibit risk-taking and new-form-making behavior.  

These are all, of course, self-fulfilling prophecies. When we think we’re "losing it" and behave accordingly (reactively) we’re bound to live out the consequences of our fears. (This isn’t psychobabble, it’s simple cause-and-effect.) 

I’m working hard to rid myself of paranoia. I’m also working to rid it from anyone I interact with.

(Maybe then all of those men in black helicopters will stop following me…) 

AC Podcast: #96, Stimulus

We must be intentional about the stimulus we absorb.

Art, Work and Engagement

I’m a little slow-on-the-gun on this one, but Brian Oberkirch makes some pretty good observations on the 43 Folders blog about engaging in the creative process.

Link: 43 Folders (Working In Close)

Repetition and Reality

{xtypo_quote}"Anodos, you never saw such a little creature before, did you?"

"No," said I; "and indeed I hardly believe I do now."

"Ah! that is always the way with you men; you believe nothing the
first time; and it is foolish enough to let mere repetition
convince you of what you consider in itself unbelievable…"

George MacDonald, PHANTASTES: A FAERIE ROMANCE FOR MEN AND WOMEN{/xtypo_quote}

Warning: ramble alert….

One of the tricks of thought that we can easily fall into is that repetition = reality.

Certainly repetition is an indicator of probability, but we cannot fall prey to the train of thought that reinforces that because something happens a lot it is more "real" than something that happens less frequently.

It’s this kind of thinking that causes us to feel "trapped" and incapable of forming new thought habits and creative connections. In fact, it’s often the breaking of these patterns of thought that lead to dramatic and newly useful understandings.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” [Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM in 1943]

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” [Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles in 1962]

“No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer. 640K ought to be enough for anybody.” [Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, in 1981]

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” [Lord Kelvin, ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist]

“Well informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.” [The Boston Post in 1865]

These thoughts are not wrong at the time, they are simply self-limiting because they are backward-looking and relying on existing patterns of understanding.

The trick is knowing which bits of info and experience to hold onto and which to let go of. For example, Einstein parted with much of Newtonian physics, but kept some of it as a basis for his original thinking on special relativity.

How we decide which to keep and which to ditch is part of the genius, I think. The trick is to know when to let go so that we can grab onto some new understanding and use it for our creating. This is a key part of the "Divergence" phase of creative growth, when we begin to find our own voice and means of expression. It is also when we will feel the most naked in our creating.

Battlefields, Creativity and Phil

My good friend and fellow "AC-er" Rob Seddon was away for the holidays and sent me an e-mail upon his return. I found it so cool and inspirational that I thought I’d pass it on:

---

 Last weekend I went to Gettysburg with my wife and her family.  My father-in-law is a big civil war aficionado who actually played a confederate soldier in the movie Gettysburg , so it was cool to bond with him over something he is passionate about.  

The battle of Gettysburg lasted for over 3 days and involved over 150,000 men, on a battlefield that is many square miles in size, so it is nearly impossible to get a good handle on what happened without having someone with you who knows their stuff. 

Even though my father-in-law would be considered a Gettysburg expert in any circle other than the history department at the University of Virginia, he wanted us to have a great experience so we hired a "licensed battlefield guide" to take us around.  (Yes, they have licensed battlefield guides in Gettysburg, and apparently the qualification test is on par with the bar exam.  Our guide was Phil Lechak.)  For over two hours, Phil drove my car around Gettysburg and explained to us exactly what happened over those ugly days in 1863.  It was fascinating!  Phil seemed to know absolutely everything about the battle of Gettysburg.  If you asked Phil where a certain person was during the battle, he would tell you the corps, division and regiment, what the person did, how he wrote longingly to his wife, and the name of the guy’s horse if he had one.  When we asked about a captain who is related to my wife, Phil showed us the house and barn between which his artillery regiment played a key role in winning the battle.  Phil walked us through the thinking of both armies and their commanders.  He showed us sight lines, explained the effect of a certain type of fence on a civil-war era military charge, and he introduced us to the benefits and drawbacks of civil war military technology.  I’ve attached a picture of Phil showing my wife how to shoot a confederate cannon.  

Phil was a complete inspiration.  Not because I want to live out my life traveling to civil war reinactments, but because I want to be as passionate about something as Phil is about Gettysburg.  As I learned more about Phil’s story, I found out that he was a career postal worker who retired two years ago. He moved to a civil-war era house in downtown Gettysburg so he could live out his dream teaching people about what happened there.  He prints out his own materials to supplement  the official "Department of the Interior approved" literature, so his tour groups will truly understand the importance of this battle in our history.  He has his own business cards that he gives to all his tour groups so they can ask questions after the fact and so they can send him pics of their tour (he has a wall of pics in his house).  Phil gives tours multiple times a day, every day, yet he still teared up when we reached the field on which over 4,000 men died in only an hour.  He was so into it that he made me feel something that happened over 150 years ago and I teared up too.  And Phil sure doesn’t do it for the money.  A two-hour tour is $45.

I rented the DVD of Gettysburg last night (one of the longest films ever released to the big screen - over 4 hours!), partly to see my father-in-law’s 15 seconds of fame, but also because I didn’t want my Phil-experience to end.  When you are as passionate about something as Phil is about Gettysburg, people just have to listen.  My wife, never the battlefield-visiting type, has been sitting next to me watching the movie saying things like, "That’s not what really happened!"  It’s incredible.  And I’m now reading a 500-page dissection of Gettysburg military strategies.  Are you kidding me!?

So the lesson I take from Phil Lechak, Licensed Gettysburg Battlefield Guide #219, is find something…anything…no matter how mundane or inconsequential, and own it.  People will move.

---

So…this gets back to our discussion about "occupation" vs. "vocation." Phil clearly had both, but Rob was moved because Phil was deeply connected and passionate about something and it transcended his "job."

Thanks for the thoughts, Rob. 

Resolved: Stop Trying So Hard

I was thinking this morning about the need to stop trying so hard. Great creating is an act of humility and results as much from learning to receive as from anything else.

It is when we realize our place in the order of things that we can see with the proper perspective.

Once we do, we can re-mix the elements into something unique and appropriate, but only if we are willing to let go of what’s in our hands in order to embrace the potential of something truly original.

When we’re trying too hard, we are reticent to give up what we “know” in order to pursue what we suspect. Granted, this is the safe way of doing things, but it also is limiting in that it’s creating by elimination rather than by embracing possibility. Great creating will always involve risk. Sometimes this risk is practical and external, (what if the client doesn’t like this approach?), and sometimes it’s very personal and ineffable (how will this affect how I view myself?)
{xtypo_quote}“Some people will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon.”  Alexander Pope {/xtypo_quote}
Hard work is necessary. Trying to force results, however, is akin to an inexperienced farmer trying to force a crop. When the first weeds pop up, he’s likely to say “hey - there it is!” then spend the rest of the summer ridding his field of the late-blooming corn.

The weeds will typically be the first to appear and we need to be patient and learn to discern what’s appropriate from what’s not. This is risky business because longer waits equal more potential for bad weather, pests, and the like, but it is the only sustainable way to yield a productive crop. If the farmer waits, he will see the pattern of the corn emerge and realize that the first plants to appear are actually weeds.

This year I am resolved to be more patient and to stop trying too hard to force results.