Yes, Boss

Bruce’s spider made a point.

Until I read the story, I always believed that persistence was a congenital defect. More often than not, it’s not a matter of choice as much as a lack of choice.

Especially in the matter of earning a livelihood. Which is no longer a rat race, but a full blown entrepreneurial effort at contribution. And it is no longer enough to be good enough.

Today, like never before, there’s an extreme demand for creativity from individuals. Not only as an end result of severe competitiveness in professions, but also in the demands of day to day life. Routine is getting to be a redundant phenomenon. Each day brings a new set of battles to be fought and won.

How to keep the caverns of the mind a virgin territory sprouting new creative ideas requires more than a flashlight search. Now that research has proved creativity to be the purview of every individual, naturally a lot of ancillary support theories have sprouted to tailor make the phenomenon. And living in an era where we are so used to the concept of a Pill for every ill, we swallow everything wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately creativity is not about choice; it is about competence. Be it in a profession, marriage, child rearing, or whatever else. It does not come in a formula of ten easy steps – it translates into lifestyles.

Let me quote from a book. “As a creative thinker you firstly need the raw materials from which new ideas are made: facts, concepts, experiences, knowledge, feelings, and whatever else you can find. However, you are much more likely to find something original if you venture off the beaten path.”

So, we go about with a frenzy to collect fodder for creativity. Our kids don’t waste time gazing at clouds, but lead structured lives – dance class, computer course, sports, hobby classes, music lessons, etc. We do the same – newspapers, magazines, books, internet, etc. The in-thing today is networking. Earlier you did for the contacts with people who were useful to you, but that is a no-no for the creative way.

The modern management gurus advocate networking with people of diverse backgrounds for what they claim will give you ‘a different perspective and new avenues of thinking’. Put a whole bunch of people with nothing in common together for socializing, and what emerges is a common Herculean effort by all to end an evening – quickly. But you can’t form a club on that.

We have begun to believe that input equals output, but does it? Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Extreme busyness, whether at school, kirk, or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality.” And he was no fool.
Perhaps our focus is the problem.

We invented the deadline, which has become our greatest excuse. We work in a frenzy up to a point of time, and then take decisions and announce results.

But what is the right timing? Is it when you have done your best, or when it is the time to stop trying? I don’t know about the romantic notions of the fruit falling from the tree only when it is ripe, but I do know that we do what we do – when our boss or our client tells us so.

Well, who has the time today to figure it out. Or, to try and try again. Bruce’s spider would probably be unemployed today.

Are deadlines the excuse for a lack of confidence, or a justification for the production of sub-standard stuff? That needs an honest answer.

Maybe what the pundits forgot to mention was the fact that we work so hard in the pursuit of creativity and that in itself is self defeating. Perhaps the mad frenzy of application of methodology is an excuse to escape from our own inner sense of perceived worthlessness. Or, a guilt for a lack of achievement for some perceived goal.

Or, simply, an utter lack of focus.

 Readers Digest published a survey conducted by a leading womens’ college in the US – “Women spend 78 hours a week doing housework. Out of this time, 20 to 25 percent is devoted to cooking, serving, washing dishes, planning menus and shopping for food. These figures may come as a shock to many readers. What about canned foods? Frozen foods? Prepared mixes? Paper plates and napkins? The answer seems to be that American women have used the time saved by inventions and conveniences to raise their standards of performance rather than to contribute to their leisure.”

It is not important who comes first in the Chicken and Egg story, but it is certainly time for a new one.

Copyright © 2013 Lima Sehgal
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