Despite talent – all great things require collaborators

I have now written a few times about the value of self-augmentation through disciplined skill acquisition and the pursuit of individual talent. In response to which, an op-ed by David Brooks entitled Genius: The Modern View has been brought to my attention which shares some of my conclusions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?ref=opinion

But the attention paid to individual efforts--certainly an obsession of western cultures--may seem to imply that a focused individual is all that matters in the creation of value. Nothing could be further from the truth. A focused individual is necessary, but not sufficient. For intense and sustained collaboration is of the essence for any meaningful work and its fruits. But there are many forms of collaboration, and all too often, we misunderstand and overlook the sustained networks of intercourse in which an apparently quiet craftsman is embedded. Likewise, we can overrate the boisterous activity of a group and equate its noise with valuable output, when in fact – all of this groups production may remain noise that will cease to reverberate and be heard no more.

In the arts, collaboration can come quite literally, as in the team required to produce a film, or a musical band, or T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, author and creative editor on The Waste Land. But even if collaboration may not be present in this sense, it is always and inescapably present in the form of influence—and influence is the driving force behind all great works.

As Harold Bloom (cf. The Western Canon: The Books and Schools of the Ages) has often said, no one is Adam early in the morning. And for better or for worse we are all interred in an old earth with weighty traditions which invigorate our minds, lungs and bodies just as they asphyxiate all the same. But the powerful find ways to stir the earth they are immersed in with their own spirit. They bring new breeds into full bloom, whose presence mesmerizes their contemporaries and will cast a shadow upon those to come. That is precisely the trick – how to bring something new and beautiful into this old vale of the world. How can we escape the asphyxia of forever laying dormant beneath the stale shadows of the thoughts of others and their determinations?

But nothing created is ever truly new – it must be worked in such a way that it challenges old thoughts, old ways of viewing things, old stories and their conclusions. In this way, we come to see that there is only so much space in the clearing of human influence. And new trees must raise themselves by feeding on the nutrients of the old. Yet in so far as they are nurtured by the bodies of the vanquished, we all remain one: past, present and future. We are at different moments of one grand cycle. But the true learning is to acknowledge that all success is necessarily embedded in this cycle, and therefore depends on the wisdom of old even as it vanquishes it – and will similarly fall to the efforts of future antagonists.

The 10,000 hour revisited -- and the disruptive economics of inspiration

A commentator to my blog yesterday wrote me with some of his thoughts regarding my previous post on talent and the development of skills, they are as follows:

“according to the rule of 10,000 it would take you 2.2 years to develop a skill, if you spent twelve hours a day on it.

there's only three alternatives you can draw from this

1. find a way to secure eternal life :-) (preferred)
2. find a way to make a lot of $$$ early, so that afterwards you can dedicate every shred of time you have to the accumulation of skills (most actionable)
3. c) come to terms with the fact that you will only accumulate one or two skills in life (defeat)”

It is true that time is a very real material constraint to the cultivation of all individuals. But 10,000 is not the time needed to “develop a skill” -- rather it is the time needed to master it. Someone who has put in a solid 10,000 hours ought to be able to jam like the Beatles and not sound like your average gritty garage band. 10,000 hours puts the individual in a position to innovate on the craft or artform, and it is true that such level of mastery will remain unobtainable to many under the current economics of human living: the necessity of wage-labor under present conditions, the necessity of time-wasting “consumer-culture” for the present economy. These two forces of neglect combine most strongly in the non-privileged classes to effectively give birth to the concept of the masses: uncouth, with little direction, walking to the beat set by another's drum.

But this does not mean that all skill-acquisition should be abandoned. I may not master a musical instrument, but even ~300 hours of practice and learning is already a world of difference for it has given me the capability and basis on which to stand if I want to bring music into my life in a way that is organic and spontaneous – instead of the commercial blaring of nonsense radio. And this begs the question – how much time does it take to really just develop a basic skill? The answer here really leads us to a notion of how one goes about living. My argument pertains to the fact that most people have really given up with regards to their own self-enhancement. Their game is really one of the moment, one of mud and worms and a little income. It is a whole other way of life to dedicate and devote time with a constant eye on extracting nuggets of wisdom and refining habits and practices so as to obtain a supremely harmonious sense of self, along with its complements in beautiful and cultivated skills and activities: in debate, in music and song and dance, in the arts of written argument, in distilling and capturing human emotion through performance, in sports and the competitive use of the body.

I think analyzing the “R&D process” of skills in this strictly cost-based way is a bit of a problem in itself. The distinction lies in the philosophical difference from “in-itself” to “for-itself”--i.e., whether or not the act pursued is done with itself as ultimate aim, or whether it is the mere means to something else. Let us remember here that the goal is not that we should all become amazingly talented in several walks of life – but rather, the goal is to illuminate our living with paths that all lead in a direction of human fulfillment and the ongoing exploration and unfolding of the life of the spirit. To use the old cliché, it is the walk and not the destination which is the point of it all.

If we steer our lives in a way where the ongoing routine is one of exaltation and development – then we would gladly pour in the time. I also think we underestimate our capacity to make do by other means than wage labor. I have never tried this last thing I preach, but I imagine that seeking ways to immediately commercialize craft and skill by reaching other people directly (rather than selling 100% of work-time to one buyer and then doing all ad-hoc tasks necessary to please this buyer) would allow for a good proportion of time invested in the ongoing refinement of the inner voice.

In conclusion – I agree that there is a fundamental economics problem that destroys the prospects of a life of enlightenment and ongoing exaltation through skill acquisition and the resulting outputs of the mastery of several skills. But I do not agree that the strategy should be to enter the workforce at 100% with the quick aim of surpassing the gravitational pull of economic necessity, and then using the means acquired to liberate oneself from all the things that have previously defined success (a high income, the praise of one's boss, quick returns for investments, etc).

The problem Is that uch economistic logic is already at odds with the spirit necessary in order to lead a life of ongoing cultivation, for it fixates on the tangible earthly matters—on the mud and water (cf. Hegel quoted in the last post). The habits of mind and body one develops while on the beck and call of necessity are highly counterproductive to the habits of inspiration. So it is important never to neglect the calling of a higher order. This means that devoting oneself to commercial employment fully is something that runs the edge of a razor and risks falling over to that place where men have become wage-laborers in soulless body. So although one may have entered employment with the thought that it is just “in-itself” and that a few years of such work should finance the “for-itself” of a more fulfilling life – the ongoing exertions of the extending horizon have a way of molding the inner self so that present occupations are “for-itself”, and what was once viewed as the ultimate aim is lost in the mirage of a desert of the soul.

For this reason I would rather set myself up for a daily struggle whereby I try to accomplish both cultivation and the expansion of my means. But it is true that at one point, perhaps fast approaching, a choice needs be made.

Talent and the 10,000 hour rule

One of the many insightful and actionable points in Malcolm Gladwell's recent book Outliers pertains to the cultivation and apparently unreachable talent that some people have managed to attain in the gaze of others. The frenzy around shows like American Idol is precisely the delusion that some individuals are miles above and beyond the ordinary individual.

The whole point is to create the perception of glimmers of value that are innate and not cultivated. In the case of these talent shows, the watching public is invited to gaze upon some talented singer or musician, etc. whose “talent” breaks through their otherwise quotidian nature. When the public witnesses the unfolding of discordant talent (so Susan Boyle's voice is surprising beautiful whereas she appears to me an ugly spinster) people feel a rush of emotion well-up inside of them that finally some truth is being revealed—the diamond in the rough.

In the case of rockstars, moviestars or otherwise established “stars” of some sort or another, there is only a pervasive sense of awe. So that a mere signature can become valuable. Fans will wait for hours to catch a glimpse of their favorite moviestar immersed in the most ordinary of chores. The point to be made is not that these people are not talented (although the standard is varied and many of them probably float on the graces of their own pretensions), but that the public—and the individuals that comprise the senseless mass, do not understand their own capacity to develop talent so that those capable of the scintillating alchemy whereby they convey true passion and soul become glorified beyond their human nature – they become like gods.

James Joyce's last book, and by most accounts an utter failure was Finnegans Wake. It is said that part of the intended message (and play-on-words title) is that people do not realize that they are dormant gods. So Joyce wanted to stir them from their slumber. It would have been an act worthy of a modern Prometheus to have accomplished that. Instead we are still immersed in the nightmare of history in which the masses continue to deserve their grindstone, all the while they neglect their own cultivation.

To return to Gladwell's point – any robust mastery of a skill – be it computer programming (Bill Gates) to music (the Beatles) rests on 10,000 hours of devoted practice. Gladwell examines the circumstances under which such phenomena of accomplishment reached such culminating success that people around them could only stand aside and watch dumbfounded, mesmerized by such “innate” and “natural” talent. These perceptions were an effect of hours of labor. And instead of employing this rule to their own self-exaltation, most people dedicate many times over 10,000 hours to the glorification of numb pulp fiction and sheer consumerism and sensationalism over substance. In many ways we are still pagans.