You know what your hero would be doing if (s)he were here now?
Something else. Something other than listening to you talk about what a great job they did and how they changed your life. You know why? Because that is the past and they are HEROES for a reason.
So why do I write this?
To discourage you?
To imply that you are weak because you hold someone in regard?
No. Not a chance. I like you. I believe in you. I trust you.
Because I want to take a minute to remind you to be you. You do not need heroes. You do not need an exemplar to set the ceiling perceived, known, or otherwise. Do your thing. Be you.
Some jazzhead friends and I were sitting around talking about Coltrane one night. Someone mentioned how cool it would have been to sit in the front row, as some of our professors had done.
I can't hear you, I'm moving forward
Front row. Crowded room. Face-in-bell. Loud. Sheets of sound.
Thing is this: Coltrane, once his records were complete, was already on to something new. If you wanted to hear what he recorded in a live session you probably would require a time machine. He moved on. We would laugh and say that if he were here today, he would ask what our obsession was with Giant Steps. He’d look and say, “Get over it. I did.”
So what I am saying tonight is this: HEROES. Get over it.
Long before Martin Mull was featured in beer ads he was a stand up comedian. You know the kind. He went on tour, made live albums, and probably even appeared on the Merv Griffin show. It was way back then when he gave us this oft-misquoted insight:
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
Since then, this quote has been usurped by educator and commentator alike who then accredited it to some other source–which may explain the career path of Martin Mull. The first noun has, for the most part been swapped out with everything you can imagine. By those who wish to elevate the mysticism of their chosen content area.
What, me worry?
My question is why do this to dance? Or to architecture? Is dancing about architecture so absurd? I would put it to you the reader that you would rather see me dance about architecture than write about most things. And you know what, it might be good. Think about it. I’ll get my shoes.
In the meantime, we may consider what this type of colorful language means to us in the real world. It causes me to think of those crackpot beat writers who seemed to have a knack for pairing words–Burroughs’ Naked Lunch for example.
I fear that we have lived and are living scripted lives.
So many digest what is provided with aplomb and grateful for it. Where are the questions? Where is the critique? As a seasoned skeptic and developing curmudgeon, let me tell you that nothing strikes my ire–gets my Irish up (trite)–more than someone who jumps in with both feet (trite) and gobbles up a presentation hook, line, and sinker (trite). Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Nunkus. Nunguna. Goose eggs. I feel, sometimes, like the only sober man at a party. Are you people serious?!
It is one of the reasons that I cannot bring myself to write a book. You see, the researcher must always provide the experts to support assertions by way of citations and references. Their data is subject to evaluation and review by anyone once published. The author is assumed the expert in the content and does not have those same responsibilities to the reader. The reader may even quote prior works of his/her own catalog for support–an honor I thought reserved for the pope.
I close urging a more skeptical approach and an avoidance of the fold-out dance steps that you lay on the floor to learn to move the way others have–be it about architecture or otherwise. Stay away from those overused expressions, myths that perpetuate only in educational examples, and phraseology that serves no purpose to expand the mind and enhance the beauty of our expression. Do something new. Think differently.
In discussing Expertise, practice, and the myth of talent it is inevitable that someone asks if they could be the next Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. Is it possible, at their age, to drop everything and learn to be as good or greater than two of the most iconic players of our age. And they groan when I tell them yes. They stomp their feet and they clench their fists–that would explain the typographical errors. The disparity seems so distant when they compare their (self-assessed) non-existent skills with those of phenoms.
Why is it that these names are legendary?
Are they indeed Experts?!
HOW DID THEY GET THAT WAY?!
They are freaks of nature. NO. They are unnatural.
You see, if we attribute their skills to pedestrian ideas like
interest, practice, and coaching
then what you are saying is that anyone can do it.
Well, guess what?
You can.
Unfortunately, you cannot do it the way that you read about in newspaper articles and in books written by newspaper journalists.
You have to work at it. If you want to be like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or any of other wonderful male or female athletes in the world, you need to possess (or decide to possess) the one thing that put the needle on the record for these individuals. You need to have interest.
Interest is a key component to developing a level of Expertise in a field. It is the thing that sustains you through mistakes and failures. It is also the thing, strangely enough, that goofs up the retelling of that early story of more and more practice. Why? Because when you have interest, practice does not always feel like practice. Other activities that contribute to your skills seem less of a chore when you know that you will get to enjoy the object of your affection shortly thereafter.
Hard unfortunate truths
Interest pays off, too. You see, when you are interested and the practice seems like fun and the supporting activities and decisions do not seem so bad and all the exercises come together in the moment of performance…
…bang goes the dynamite–you have gotten better and that feels really gooooooooood…
and the next time you practice, which is probably that night or early the next morning–assuming you are not practicing in your mental space while lying in bed–you cannot wait to get better again.
What will be the next great thing that appears?
When someone tells me that they’ve tried basketball or golf or singing or martial arts or visual arts or writing or whatever…
and they stink at it
and they “don’t mind admitting it”
my first thought is that they are not really interested. And my advice is to find your interest and pursue it.
Find that thing that feels like nothing at all and do that…
Freud compared civilized lives and savage lives in his 1929 treatise “Civilization and its Discontents.” He illuminated the conflict that exists between the driven individual and the context that demands uniformity.
“Civilization, therefore, obtains mastery over the individual’s dangerous desire for aggression by weakening and disarming it and by setting up an agency within him to watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city.”
The implication that conformity is a primary function of civilization may seem less than alarming. Philosophers may soften it by framing it as some sort of social contract. We conform out of deference to the whole and to each other. We have been convince that, in doing so, we recognize ourselves as thoughtful individuals.
We are safe. We do not even need to talk. We can nod. Should we find ourselves in a situation where someone steps outside of compliance, we look to each other for reassurance–This is crazy, right?
Some time ago, it was decided that regulation of behavior would be embedded, if you will.
A scheme.
Value.
A mechanism.
Socially.
Developmentally.
Expectation and pressure.
Words like garrisons have been used in discussing the idea of ‘self-regulating’ mechanisms that have been implanted into individuals to maintain compliance to the norms and standards of civilization. Garrisons are set up in conquered cities to quell small uprisings. What Freud refers to as the aggressive mind, we would call the progressive mind.
If this is true, we have to consider that we have been programmed to submit to societal conventions. IF this is true we have to consider that we are perpetuating these ideas in our homes, our families, and our classrooms. IF this is true, we have to consider that resistance may be futile which means that this resistance can no longer be tolerated.
HAL 9000: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
