Tag: HBR

  • Legacy, Mastery, Success

    At Brain Pickings, that treasure trove of awesomeness, I found this quote attributed to Ray Bradbury on legacy, through a character in Fahrenheit 451:

    Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.

    The subject of legacy keeps popping up here, and my understanding, especially since the last post has been that it is not something that one works towards, but happens as a (side) result of doing something that you love to do. In that sense, I would read between the lines above and add that ‘doing what you love to do’ as a prequel to the quote.

    One of the best posts I have recently read was Hugh MacLeod’s ‘On Mastery‘. I immediately riffed on it over at the other blog. It articulated things that I know for certain were muddled up somewhere in me, wanting to be told but finding words missing. He starts with trying to define success “Suc­cess”. What does it take to be suc­cess­ful, pros­perous, happy, have a sense of pur­pose etc?, separates it from the by products like fame and money and arrives at “It’s something that truly belongs to you”. For the master (as someone commented on the post) it’s more about the process than the product. Low key, known by a few, but masters in their chosen domain. “It’s something that truly belongs to you, always.”

    In the ever hyper world of real time media, micro-celebrities and experts, fame and money are many times the definitions of ‘success’, and though I do know at least a few people who have bucked that trend, it was heartening to read posts that told me that such thoughts weren’t really alien.

    There is an interesting article I read on the subject on HBR titled “You Are Not a Failure” which had an intriguing classification of  types of creativity — “conceptual” (in which a young person has a clear vision and executes it early, a la Picasso or Zuckerberg) and “experimental” (think Cezanne or Virginia Woolf, practicing and refining their craft over time and winning late-in-life success).

    Thanks to the deluge of information and opinions, it is ridiculously easy to give up on yourself and lose confidence. As Godin writes in “Do we have to pander?“, it is also easy to compromise, and then defend.   I think this is not just for greatness (people or things), but also holds true for personal belief systems and mores. And probably, at the very end, the perseverance really doesn’t achieve anything other than the satisfaction of setting one’s own definition of success and spending time and energy on it. But I have a feeling it’s worth it. A legacy in itself.

    until next time, this happens to be post #1000 here 🙂

  • The Uncertainty Principles

    Not the quantum theory kind. Sometime back I read this interesting post on HBR on uncertainty, which made me think about my relationship with the concept. I must admit that I have more than a little affection for certainty. That is exhibited in most of everything I do – from my routine to travel itineraries to life planning. It also manifests in relationships – not just with people, but even services like Twitter. 🙂 It is probably a bit about control, and a bit about not having to waste what I consider premium currency – time.

    In the post, Tony Schwartz states that

    It feels good to know things for sure. It makes us feel safer, at least in the short term. But certainty has its limitations. Very rarely, I’ve discovered, is certainty the outgrowth of careful consideration and deep understanding. Far more often, it’s a primitive instinct — a way we defend against uncertainty, which understandably feels unsettling and even dangerous.

    I really can’t disagree with that, though I think that sometimes it’s an individual’s conscious choice. The sad part is that the automaton inside us usually makes this choice for us. Further in the article, he also adds a neurological perspective on why we are pulled to certainty, and then “Above all, certainty kills curiosity, learning, and growth.” And that’s the part that I am ironically, unsure of. My take is that if I am certain about a set of things, I am able to focus on, and do better in another set of things.

    Devdutt Pattanaik’s ‘The Pregnant King’ was an excellent read, and though it was the story of Yuvanshva, the king gives birth to a son after drinking a magic potion meant for his wives, it is also about the nature of the world and the fluidity of dharma among other things. There are a few interesting statements in it, if I consider it from the uncertainty context.

    In an argument with Pisachas, Yuvanshva states that “every civilisation needs its delusion” and we don’t take kindly to things that “threaten the facade of order”. I think that would hold for individuals who prefer certainty too. In another conversation between Yuvanshva and the Angirasa, there is a meaning given to the existence of this world,

    When all is understood and accepted, the world will lose its purpose and cease to be. The world exists only to make us wise. Ignorance fuels pain and from pain comes our search for wisdom.

    But my favourite is in the form of two diametrically opposite approaches to the purpose of life that comes earlier in the book – Yaja and Upayaja, two Siddhas who never agreed on anything, yet ended up taking the same decisions.

    Yaja sat under a banyan tree and sought truth in stillness. Upayaja always sat before a waterfall and sought truth in movement. Yaja said, “By observing the flow of rasa, one can train the mind to accept destiny. This is the purpose of life. Upayaja argued, “By manipulating the flow of rasa, one can change the world and fructify all desires. That’s the true purpose of life.”

    Though Upayajya’s argument might seem in favour of certainty, I’d say that both are versions of the same story – embracing uncertainty. And thus, another lesson from the book springs to mind “The truth is not poison. It is our inability to handle it that makes it poisonous” The same goes for uncertainty too… I guess 🙂

    until next time,