21. Heavy-hitting simplicity
What kind of personality do you want your car to have?
Market research
Marketing is a magnifying glass held to one of the most fascinatingly neurotic aspects of human nature.
In the 1950s, Ford spent a lot of money doing market research to launch the next big thing for cars: The Edsel. It flopped.
From Time magazine:
After the decision was made in 1955, Ford ran more studies to make sure the new car had precisely the right “personality.” Research showed that Mercury buyers were generally young and hot-rod-inclined, while Pontiac, Dodge and Buick appealed to middle-aged people. Edsel was to strike a happy medium. As one researcher said, it would be “the smart car for the younger executive or professional family on its way up.” To get this image across, Ford even went to the trouble of putting out a 60-page memo on the procedural steps in the selection of an advertising agency, turned down 19 applicants before choosing Manhattan’s Foote, Cone & Belding. Total cost of research, design, tooling, expansion of production facilities: $250 million.
When people tell the story of the Edsel, the conclusion is usually about how to do more effective market research, that “Ford failed to account for the larger trends — you see, they didn’t realize people actually wanted compact cars” or whatever.
I just love the whole thing as an example of how weird we are.
People don't really want compact cars. Nobody’s really questing for fulfillment in the car that reflects their “smart executive status.”
We're told that we want these things, just not verbatim. And that’s why we believe it so strongly. We’re soaking in the stew that conditions us to want these things. As a result, we take our products and services very seriously.
Is this the subscription model that defines me as a person?
Does this membership make my butt look big?
Guru alert
Part of what fascinates me about meditation is its ability to peel back layers of emotionality and belief. The things I take for granted. Conditioned beliefs. Societal norms.
Default beliefs have the strongest effect, because I don't even think to question them.
So when I hear someone say, “Oh, I'm not creative,” it confounds me.
I’m on the other end of the spectrum. Creativity makes life worth living. I have learned to tolerate a lot of personal weirdness and big life pivots as I overcorrect toward some shiny new source of inspiration.
I like to think that I’ve gotten wiser over the years. But I also know I’m in the minority for this lifestyle choice. Most people believe they do not have access to it.
Where would such a belief come from?
Default programming
“I’m not creative,” you say.
How did you come to believe that?
The usual response is an associative chain like this:
I associate creativity with art.
I associate art with memories of lame classes with lame teachers.
Hence, tossing out the baby of creativity with the bathwater of art is natural.
Hoity-toity art. High-falutin’ art. A guy’s gotta pay the bills.
We relegate art to something we do as children, so it is never allowed to be more than something vaguely cathartic, therapeutic, or harmlessly playful.
It's a shame because artistic endeavors are fantastic ways of discovering yourself and identifying more as a creative force—if you really put yourself into the process.
The process has a start and a stop
I place all the emphasis on the moment of creation. In the moment, I’m the artist. In the moment, I’m free.
When the process stops, so does the identification. I go and eat a hamburger.
If I had to remain the artist forever, things would become Very Serious. How does my art fit in with the other art? Will I really make it as an artist? How should I position myself in a crowded and competitive market?
For me to be really present, I have to set a boundary and make the moment a sacred space. I can’t let what happens later affect how I show up.
Yes, of course, everything matters. But not in the ways I’m conditioned to believe. And I’ll be better positioned to discern what matters when I am not burdened with representing anything other than myself in the moment.
Art is an opportunity to impose your will on something, to shape something into something, to make something from nothing.
Like anything worth doing, it's alchemical.
Art is a mode for creative self-discovery when you are present with yourself as you engage in the process.
Art this, art that. But the rest of life is a palette for creative self-discovery, too. Yes?
I’d love for us all to make it so.
Sim-pluff-eye
Having a creative practice is a way to shift your identity as a creative being.
But like anything else, if I spend a lot of time with it, I’m apt to take it Very Seriously. And no degree of success is an escape from the seriousness trap. It’s just a different flavor of the weeds of personal nonsense.
One solution for me is to have more than one pursuit. I shift from one to the other in a way that supports me.
Part of what I love about pottery is its simplicity. I show up at the wheel, I put some clay down and I make something. I show up for the process and there’s joy every time.
If I were to fixate on it alone, the process would take on gravity. I would begin to externalize what is most important, and the life would be drained from the process. I’d start to become an aficionado of one clay type versus another or something.
And maybe that’s why identifying as a creative person is so unthinkable. It’s hard to persist at something so ever-changing. Even though it’s simple, it’s a confronting experience that compounds as you move deeper.