Category Archives: Epiphanies

Condemned to be alone

Jean Paul Sartre said men are condemned to be free. But it seems more like we are condemned to be alone. In the wake of our problems only we can help ourselves out of them. Any help that we get are only of courtesy. Yet, we are not built for loneliness. Our social instincts demand us to desire more. Life was not created to be beautiful. Humans certainly were not created to be equal. Our ideas and applications of them may be converging. But our very definition will only diversify. Leading to the death of belonging.

So Oversimplified They Don’t Get You

Why the video trump the book in the Quest for communicating his ideas

Cal Newport, 2012, ‘The Clarity of the Craftsman’ in So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work, NY Business Plus, ch.4.

Just as I was about to write a #triggered rant about this reading after I finished it, I decided to read up on who Cal Newport actually is… who he is writing to… and what he was ultimately on about.

As evident in his publications, they are mostly aimed at high schoolers or college students:

I also stumbled upon a Talks at Google video in which he makes a bit more effort than the book does in addressing the issues and explaining his ideas. But first, let’s breakdown the issues in the text.

Firstly, it is really difficult to understand the full context of this text without the rest of his book. So my critique of it is subject to the lack of certain contexts. That is, the author may have clarified or defined some of these points earlier in the book.

The author seem to take for granted the words he uses mean the exact same thing to everyone else, and fails to acknowledge any room for interpretation. He doesn’t define any of the terms he chooses to use repeatedly throughout the text. From the contents page down to the actual text itself, the author is prone to oversimplifying his concepts and other ideas he is referring to.  And by doing so, reveal the complex relationships between them even more.

Some semantics worth elaborating upon would be:

“Be So Good”:

Good at what? Good in what sense? Not once throughout the text does he actually elaborate on what he means to be ‘so good they can’t ignore you’. What does this author define as good? Why good and not best, or better? Good is such an elusive term!

More Importantly – One might contemplate on the varying degrees on our individual scales. What do we all think is good, or good enough? Good for you might not be good enough for me, etc.

“Crafts”:

The writer interviews a handful of performers and establishes that whoever his readers are, no matter what kind of career or work they are involved in or plan to pursue, they should take on the “craftsman mindset”. Firstly, he doesn’t explain or contextualise his case studies. He generalises and ignores the various natures of different types of work. It almost feels like he was too lazy to go into depths. By emphasising ‘crafts’, it implies to readers they should obsess over the medium or means in which they create or work and not focus on what you want to do with it. Why give it such a misleading name?

“what you can offer the world” & “what the world can offer you”:

These phrases are not only vague in what they’re actually saying, but only seem to invoke by feeling in the readers that one is good for you and the other clearly not. By saying ‘what you can offer the world’, he could very well mean something along the lines of contribution to the larger things we care about (he does provide a better example in the video). But one can easily interpret this line as offering your services to the market, which many more people (in retail/hospitality for example) actually do and think they are “serving the world”.

“Passion”:

The writer uses strong and subjective language and again, fails to elaborate when needed. In the video below, he actually does address what is it about the word “passion” that he is against. This might also be addressed in a previous chapter in the book, but it is certainly not clarified within this chapter. In the video he speaks specifically of the “follow your passion” mindset, which he explains as being problematic due to the assumption that we all have preexisting passions and can be matched or assigned to specific jobs. In other words, he is saying don’t think of passions as the jobs you seek. Which is really good advice, only he didn’t really do it justice in the text. In the text, he seems awfully bias against anything to do with passion or self discovery; which honestly befuddled me.

‘Second (reason)…the deep questions driving the passion mindset – “Who am I?” and “What do I truly love?” – are essentially impossible to confirm. “Is this who I really am?” and “Do I love this?” rarely reduce to clear yes-or-no responses. In other words, the passion mindset is almost guaranteed to keep you perpetually unhappy and confused…’

By listing a few generic examples of “deep questions” and then jumping to an extreme and far-fetched conclusion that: the passion mindset (which is not distinguished enough in the text from passion itself) will leave you ‘perpetually unhappy and confused’, He seem to assume he has achieved his explanation.

That argument projects, whether he intended it or not, a fundamental logical fallacy: Sophisticated questions are difficult to answer, so let’s not worry about them. It even sounds more like: life is not about living for yourself, it’s about ‘the quest for work you love’. Surely, he ain’t suggesting that, right? But by downplaying these philosophical questions while he continues to market his quote “be so good they can’t ignore you’ for the fifth time in the last ten pages, it positions his ideas in a very misleading context.

My conclusion is that this guy actually does make a lot of sense when he talks about these ideas in the video. But his text falls short in delivering the same. His Q&A in the video also brings out and clarifies his perspective even more.

What he wanted to say from this video:

  • Passion is not an entitlement nor does it preexist. It does take work to discover something we can call a sense of purpose. That purpose shouldn’t be about matching an interest to a job. And it often will overlap with what we need to contribute or offer to the world. Part of this might involve trying different roles, doing or making, dedicating those hours to immerse oneself in those environments to find out what in life fulfills or satisfies.
  • Achieving more ‘general lifestyle traits’ such as: autonomy, power, respect, impact, time, affluence, etc. are what gives people a real sense of satisfaction in what they do. Not the specific work itself. There are many possible paths that leads to these traits.
  • Building up the skills that you can offer to the market and will make you valuable. This maximises your opportunities and allow you to take control of your working life and lead towards achieving the more general traits in life that create fulfillment and satisfaction.
In my own experience:

Having gone through many of these phases throughout high school and 8 years of vocational and higher education, I can relate to his message in the video about focusing on attaining the skills or qualities you need before pursuing the larger, more fulfilling projects later in life, which will present themselves as you maximise your opportunities.

When I was in high school, family, my partner, and close friends often questioned and expected me to have a passion in the creative arts. They expected that I knew I was going to be a photographer for the rest of my life if I chose that path. I would never know how to respond to those expectations. I knew I wanted to be in the creative arts, but photography to be exact? I would tell them that I am pursuing photography until I discover something else in a similar field.

After a good 5 years in the field of contemporary art, I transferred to Media, and did a crash course in philosophy through my early electives. It wasn’t until I started being interested in the broader world that I found some sense of purpose. I became curious and begun to understand the world around me: science, technology, education, and other global and social issues. All of a sudden, filmmaking didn’t matter anymore. I had the epiphany that the medium I am training in is not the end game. It only provides the means for me to communicate or help others communicate important messages. I looked at the skills and abilities I have acquired in the past few years: art direction, photography, digital editing skills, technical knowledge and experience, experimentation, conceptual development, creative methodology, critical thinking and ability to think philosophically, crafting communication through multiple mediums. These skills and abilities can now be used to achieve a more fulfilling purposes of communicating important and valuable messages or be used to contribute to and solve more significant issues I care about.

Purpose unites skills and passion. Newport defines skills as what you can offer the world, and following your passion being what the world can offer you. On the contrary, I would argue that: Skills are what the world offers you which enables you to more purposeful work and pursue what you want to offer the world.

#Triggered

Industry 4.0

Self-driving cars + 3d printing + A.I. + Designer babies + Economics = Best Reading Ever! 

In The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016), Klaus Schwab provides a global economic perspective on how the fourth industrial revolution is changing the way we live, work, consume, and think. Schwab highlights the mega-trends in science and technology which have lead to today’s physical, digital, and biological revolution. These new developments and innovations have significant impact on the economical, political, social, and individual levels.

Some areas of the reading that I found interesting or sparked some insights:

On the nature of work

The on-demand economy:

Projects are being compartmentalised and outsourced to independent workers around the world. ‘A series of transactions between a worker and a company more than an enduring relationship’ (p.47). We can already see this trend in media and other creative industries. Not only do more creative workers establish themselves as freelancers compared to workers in other industries, but this also appears to be the trend in the larger collaborative structure of creative industries e.g. when major production houses from the U.S. outsource visual effects work on their films to Australian companies, or when smaller production companies – who tend to specialise in areas of graphics, sound, and other production areas – collaborate on a larger scale project themselves.

The downside of the human cloud:

I have always been excited about the collaborative, content sharing and networking possibilities opened by crowd-sourcing. ‘Belonging to a global virtual network’ (p.48) is a very appealing thought to me. But it had never occur to me that there was a downside to it. Whilst enabling greater opportunities for skill sharing and more diverse ways of making a living, this new form of employment is currently under-regulated and prone to exploitation as companies are free from the requirements of employment regulation such as minimum wages, taxation, and social benefits. I am not disgusted by this new perspective, but appreciate how complex and delicate this fast-changing, technologically-driven economy is; and how this text has broaden my views on this topic. There is always two sides of a coin to consider. As Schwab summed it up: ‘it all depends on the policy and institutional decisions we make’ (p.49). 

The importance of purpose:

Though this segment was brief, it struck me most personally. Younger generations are beginning to realise and understand the importance of viewing work and life as a unified concept, and the importance of passion and purpose in both. However, as work become more of a sense of purpose and fulfillment in life rather than a means to make ends meet for the younger generation, the economy is evolving to be more compartmentalised, and less personal and communal.

Karl Marx’s concern and Buckminster Fuller’s words contextualises a question I have been trying to figure out since the start of this year: For the past six months or so, I have been thinking hard and thorough about my strengths and weaknesses in terms of my career. I know myself well enough to say that I am thoroughly a generalist. This is my biggest strength as it gives me the ability to intuitively understand the world around me through the relationship of parts. But this is also my biggest weakness as the industry is heading in the opposite direction – particularly in its value of specialisation within the crowd-sourcing and skill sharing landscape. In this regard, I have very little to market professionally.

On the impact on governance

The impact on power:

The fourth industrial revolution has created a world that is more integrated, boundless, and empowering. But these liberations comes at a price. Schwab points out that:

‘With growing citizen empowerment and greater fragmentation and polarization of populations, this could result in political systems that make governing more difficult and governments less effective.’ (p.67)

As evident in the lack of regulation in the new work landscape, governments and legal systems around the world are often struggling to keep up with the fast-growing developments of the online and technological economies. Adding to this delay is the growing public engagement via the empowerment of social networks.

Power is becoming more elusive: 

‘As Moisés Naím puts it, “in the 21st century, power is easier to get, harder to use, and easier to lose.”…With a few exceptions, policymakers are finding it harder to effect change…Micro-powers are now capable of constraining macro-powers such as national governments’ (p.68). 

Whilst social empowerment is a liberty I do not take for granted, social opinion is gradually becoming a red herring among political debates. Leading to political parties trying to winning popularity contests rather than paying attention to game-changing developments and their significance. It is not just new economic systems that need new regulations. As Schwab emphasised, the advancements in the biological sector are the trickiest to regulate. Not only are we absolutely unprepared for the world these developments are leading us towards, but the ontological questions they challenge us with are ones we have not yet been able to successfully define.

Other topics in Schwab’s text that intrigue me greatly on which if I choose to elaborate, this post will not be delivered on time, even with the “backdating” feature…

  • Artificial Intelligence!
  • The Internet of Things!
  • Bioengineering and its ethical implications!
  • Virtual and physical integration!
  • The dynamics of discovery!

99% invisible

It’s been a while.

Since I have visited this place…or listened to Radiolab…

Discovered a very interesting podcast in the latest episode on Radiolab: 99% Invisible

At first, I thought it was something to do with Dark Matter, something invisible and undetectable to us which scientists say makes up something like 94% of the universe!

Then, I thought maybe it was a metaphor for how much we can’t see: as visible light only makes up a few percentage of the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

This is what I soon discovered: “99% Invisible is a tiny radio show about design, architecture & the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world.”

Although this podcast mainly focuses on design, architecture and cities, the concept of its name still sparked ideas for me.

As I am working on a project with a friend to understand the different influences on climate change, and why it is still so easily denied, I think the concept of 99% invisible is a suitable metaphor to describe not only the easily forgotten yet significant impact we have on our planet as a species, but also our blindness to the true insignificance of our selves, race, gender, countries, species, planet and even our solar system on a cosmic scale.

The phrase highlights the wonderful duality of human perspective: that we ought to be humble of our place in the universe, yet never underestimate the impacts we can have in our environment.