BREAKING IN

Breaking in

We feel for the faint clicks, the minute, instantaneous vibrations that touch us like the most delicate movements of air. Something fits somewhere, suddenly. We listen closely, watch for evidence of wheels turning with the narrowest, most focused vision we can apply, force our minds to dilate time. Then, suddenly, like safe crackers, we're in.

Finding the right path into a creative project is just as important as delivering the goods on the other side. The approach vector determines the glide slope; the glide slope determines the point of anticipated touchdown. Then, when the cross winds hit you in the body--and they will hit you--you've at least got a plan, and your hands are firmly on the yoke.

(Are you wondering if I'm going to launch a third metaphor in the next paragraph? Ain't gonna happen.)

When undertaking a creative enterprise, it's easy to dismiss simple clues that you're on the right path. Discoveries and experiments that please you probably do so because you CAN tell the difference between a good idea and a bad idea. At least you SHOULD be able to tell the difference if you know your craft and you're being honest with yourself. Bad, or at least boring, ideas generally do not cause pleasure. They cause resignation.

But it's not enough to please yourself, or amuse yourself, or satisfy yourself. Unless you're that lonely poet locked in your precious garret, someone else is probably expecting you to deliver unto them a jewel they could not cut by themselves. That's why they hired you in the first place, and you're a fool if you reject your most astute perceptions about what you think they really want.

But first you must break in to the enterprise, and the thing about creative work is that each project is always opaque on day one. Even if you're a subject matter expert--a thoracic surgeon in a hospital operating theater--the patient always presents a unique history that demands careful attention to detail and custom made solutions that--hey!--work brilliantly. Just like the surgeon working on the patient, half measures are not going to work.

To successfully break in you must bring your powers of perception, reduce the mental clutter around you as much as you can, and lean in like your life depended on it. There may be multiple solutions to the problem, but you're not looking for adequate. You're looking for elegant. You're looking for the sublime, and like a safecracker, that takes a certain touch.

--MS

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BEING, KNOWING, DOING

Thinking about tea, understanding tea, making tea: like all things, there are different points of entry to understand the merits of these things. 

You exist. We'll get nowhere if we don't presume agreement about that. Existence is being.

Knowing is harder. Knowing simultaneously concerns an accumulation of information and experience, as much as it's about internalizing those things to achieve depth of understanding. Some things we know superficially -- like the rules of scoring an "out" in baseball. Some things we know deeply, like a pro player knowing where to throw the ball in the middle of a forced play with runners on first and third. Knowing is an ratio of information learned against depth of understanding. It always has room to grow, and it always has the potential to change. It even has the potential to be wrong.

Doing is where it counts. Doing means converting information into action to fit the needs or desires of circumstance. Where being confers need, and knowing describes skill, doing is the manifestation of life.

It's simple, right?

It can be, even when it's complicated.

Whether you're a creative person in the traditionally artistic sense, or you're a creative person in your law office coming up with inventive ways to settle intellectual property disputes, this simple triangle defines all solutions. Each facet presents challenges; each presents opportunities.

It's possible to change your state of being. Not always, but often. For many people there are circumstances that offer limited opportunity to change states of being. Wage slaves in third world factories cannot easily alter their daily lot. But the metaphor matters here, as even subtle ways of reorienting our thinking can sometimes unlock opportunity.

Knowing has to do with how stiff your skin may be. It takes courage to open yourself to the world, to take in new ideas, to become soft enough to absorb. Knowing is like moving water with your hand: the action must be intentional-- not so fast to cause water to become a wall, not so slow that you hand hardly moves any water at all.

Doing is about engagement. Doing is about being willing to turn the autopilot off, to grab the controls, to make something that did not exist a moment ago. People often mistake action for doing. They're similar, but they're not the same. When we go through our routine labors every day--our commutes, our same old disputes with our spouses, our weekly reports for bosses, our water bills--we're acting, but we're not doing. The real measure of doing is about being intentional, about converting being and knowing into something that radiates its own light. That light means we're making something new. That light means we're involved with something that's growing, alive, real.

Being, knowing, doing. Sometimes things that sound simple most clearly limn the parts of life about which we should aspire. And sometimes those simple sounding things actually aren't that hard to put into practice after all.

--MS