The Saunterer

Luis W. Alvarez’s method for conceiving new problems to solve

    Luis W. Alvarez and his father had a method that served them well:

Dad never claimed he might have won that Nobel Prize, but he did say more than once that he would have been a better researcher if he had occasionally let his mind wander over the full range of his work. He advised me to sit every few months in my reading chair for an entire evening, close my eyes, and try to think of new problems to solve. I took his advice very seriously and have been glad ever since that I did. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 220)

    Researchers without new problems to solve get nowhere. But why stop with researchers? Think of artists, teachers and business people, indeed all creative workers.

Rita Levi-Montalcini on useful ignorance in creative work

    Because Rita Levi-Montalcini underestimated difficulties in her research, she made the discovery that won her a Nobel Prize. Looking back, she generalizes:

I have become persuaded that, in scientific research, neither the degree of one’s intelligence nor the ability to carry out one’s tasks with thoroughness and precision are factors essential to personal success and fulfillment. More important for the attaining of both ends are total dedication and a tendency to underestimate difficulties, which cause one to tackle problems that other, more critical and acute persons instead opt to avoid. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p.189)

    Her idea seems good for every branch of creative work. Think of the excellence of the Sistine Chapel’s frescoes. Think of Michelangelo. Think of the arts. Think of projects that aim to put great goodness into the world.

Ignorance can be useful

    In mentally Sauntering through Thoreau’s essay “Walking,” I couldn’t let this idea of his go:

We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge is power, and the like. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance. . . .

    Myths are lies, and some of them have the purpose of making us do the right thing. I’ve heard that in slash-and-burn agricultural regions of Central America, the Ciba tree can suddenly snap as it is being felled, the recoil killing or injuring the cutters. Leaving them in ignorance of the scientific truth -- “The data show that if you cut it it’ll probably kill you”-- is less effective at stopping them than is telling them a falsity -- “Your ancestors live in the tree. If you cut it you’ll kill them.”

    Myths aside, can you think of a benefit from being ignorant of any aspect of one’s work? The next post will bring you one.

   

A picture of the sacred Ciba tree is a click away

Thoreau and sauntering

    Near the beginning of Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Walking,” he tells us what a Saunterer is:

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks – who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. . . . [For] every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

    Know thyself first, advised Socrates. To this end, try listing several of your worldly Holy Lands and the Infidels on their way to taking them to pieces. What is the most you’d sacrifice if it would save a Holy Land of yours from ruin? Your life? A resolution never to eat out again?

    When we get right down to it, no Holy Land was ever saved by wishing or offering token gestures. Nothing but great personal sacrifice of time and money has a chance.

A copy of Thoreau's essay on the EcoTopia web site

The inescapability of responsibility

    It strikes this Sauntering mind that essays have influenced the world. A notable instance is mentioned by Theodore Rockwell, biographer of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover:

The point about the inescapability of responsibility was basic Rickover dogma, and he never missed an opportunity to drive it home. He circulated copies of John Grier Hibben’s ‘Essay on Responsibility’ to all the staff and expected them to read and learn from it. (Rockwell, T. 1992 The Rickover Effect.  Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.)

    In the essay’s closing paragraph Hibben distills its message:

If a man would escape all responsibility he must place himself wholly outside of the relations of life, for life is responsibility. As we have seen, responsibility remains with us even though we may ask others to assume it; we share it with others, but our portion is the same; when we turn our backs on it, we find it still facing us; we flee from it, and however far it may be, we behold it waiting for us at the journey’s end. (in: Hibben, J. G. 1911  A Defense of Prejudice. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.)

William Charles Macready: a perfectionist

    Among the best artists and artisans, tenacious resolve to perfect one’s work drives the investment in self. Think of William Charles Macready, an English actor of nearly two hundred years ago. Day-in, day-out, project after project, he prompted himself toward perfecting his acting, taking him above his best intentions, and high among the great actors of his century. Nothing but a large sample of entries from his diaries can show this, for resolve to be a perfectionist is invisible in anything less than a panoramic survey:

[January 4, 1833] My acting to-night was coarse and crude –- no identification of myself with the scene; and what increased my chagrin on the subject, some persons in the pit gave frequent vent to indulgent and misplaced admiration. The consciousness of unmerited applause makes it quite painful and even humiliating to me.

[May 28, 1833] I acted Hamlet, although with much to censure, yet with a spirit, and feeling of words and situations, that I think I have never done before.

[July 28, 1833] I have begun more seriously this month to apply to the study of my profession, impelled by the necessity which the present state of the drama creates. . . . To do my best is still my duty to myself and to my children, and I will do it.

[August 27, 1833] Acted particularly well William Tell, with collectedness, energy and truth; the audience felt it. I spoke in my own manly voice, and took time to discriminate. I was much pleased.

[August 29, 1833] At the rehearsal of Lear I found myself very deficient, undecided, uncollected; in short, unprepared for the attempt.

[October 22, 1833] Felt tired and dissatisfied with myself.

[November 20, 1833] Read Antony through the whole evening and discovering many things to improve and bring out the effect of the part. . . .

[December 9, 1833] I am ashamed, grieved and distressed to acknowledge the truth: I acted disgracefully, worse than I have done for years; I shall shrink from looking into a newspaper to-morrow, for I deserve all that can be said in censure of me.

[May 20, 1834] Before rising, thought over the madness of Lear, which now begins to obtain something resembling that possession of my mind which is necessary to success in whatever we desire to reach excellence.

[October 25,1834] Low and distressed; forgot the beginning of my first speech to Amintor; acted as I used to act three or four years ago, not like myself now. Could not do what I proposed at rehearsal.

[December 10, 1834] Went to the theatre, where I acted William Tell only tolerably; was a good deal distressed by the actors, imperfect and inattentive. . . .

[January 17, 1835] Acted King Lear unequally –- wanted the sustaining stimulant of an enthusiastic audience -– wanted in them the sensibility to feel quickly what I did. . . .

[March 6, 1835] Went to theatre and should have acted Oakley well, but that in the only scene in which the performers were not very imperfect with me, the prompter in every pause I made in a scene where the pauses are effects kept shouting “the word” to me till I was ready to go and knock him down.

[September 29, 1835] I returned to Macbeth. It is strange that I do not feel myself at all satisfied with myself:  I cannot reach in execution the standard of my own conception. I cannot do it; and I am about to enter on the season which will decide my fortune, with the drawback of the consciousness of not being able to realize my own imaginations.

[October 16, 1835] Went to theatre and acted Hamlet, not as I did the last time -– I felt then the inspiration of the part; to-night I felt as if I had a load upon my shoulders. The actors said I played well. The audience called for me and made me go forward. Wallace, Forster, and H. Smith, who came into my room, all thought I played well -– but I did not. I was not satisfied with myself –- there was effort, and very little free flow of passion.

[February 27, 1836] I acted Othello –- I scarcely know in what way –- not to please myself; the truth is, I have lost the tone, the pitch of voice, the directness of the part, and I strive in vain to recall it; perhaps and, as I believe, because I do not strive enough. . . .

[May 26, 1836] Rehearsed Ion with much care. Went to the theatre and acted the character as well as I have ever played any previous one, with more inspiration, more complete abandonment, more infusion of myself into another being, than I have been able to attain in my performances for some time. . . .

[October 10, 1836] Went to theatre. Acted Macbeth as badly as I acted well on Monday last. The gallery was noisy, but that is no excuse for me; I could not feel myself in the part. I was labouring to play Macbeth; on Monday last I was Macbeth. . . . Oh, God! Oh, God! Shall I never learn to act with wisdom?

[December 7, 1836] Mrs. Glover observed to me, hoping I should not be offended at the observation, that she had never seen such an improvement in my person as in myself lately. I told her I was extremely gratified to hear her say so, since every art needed study and was progressive in its course towards perfection.

[January 2, 1837] Acted Lord Hastings very, very ill indeed, in the worst possible taste and style. I really am ashamed to think of it; the audience applauded, but I deserve some reprobation. . . . Whatever is good enough to play is good enough to play well, and I could have acted this character very well if I had prepared myself as I should have done. Without study I can do nothing.

[June 19, 1837] I laboured through Richard, but it was labour, and most ineffectual. I was very bad, very bad.

[August 29, 1837] Acted Virginius miserably; it was painful to myself, and could have been satisfactory to no one.

[September 20, 1837] Acted Ion very languidly indeed; occupation through the day is scarcely compatible with a really successful performance. The nerves and spirits cannot keep their tone. How strange are the thoughts that pass through one’s brain, when acting without being possessed by the character.

[April 7, 1838] Acted Foscari very well. Was very warmly received on my appearance; was called for at the end of the tragedy and received by the whole house standing up and waving handkerchiefs with great enthusiasm.

[February 18, 1839] Acted King Lear well. The Queen was present, and I pointed at her the beautiful lines, ‘Poor naked wretches!’ . . .

[April 16, 1839] Acted King Lear very well –- as well, if not better than I had ever done.

[July 16, 1839] Rose and prepared to play in a very depressed condition. My reception was so great, from a house crowded in every part, that I was shaken by it. I acted King Henry V better than I had yet done, and the house responded to the spirit in which I played.

[September 30, 1839] Acted Shylock, and tried to do my best; but how unavailing is all reasoning against painful facts –- the performance was an utter failure.

[July 21, 1840] Began to act Jacques very fairly, but was thrown off my balance by a man in the gallery vociferating: “What do you go on for, spoiling Shakespeare,” etc. I caught no more, for the audience was roused and he was turned out. But he was right in judgment, however barbarous and ungentlemanly his method of giving publicity to it.

[April 26, 1841] Acted Macbeth in my very best manner, positively improving several passages. . . . I have improved, Macbeth.

[February 23, 1842] Acted Gisippus, I must admit, not well, not finished; not like a great actor. . . . The effect of the play was success; but I am not satisfied.

[March 3, 1843] I entered this morning upon my fiftieth birthday. How very little of self-approval attends the review of my past life -– how much of self-reproach!

[March 23, 1843] Acted Iago better, I think, than I ever have before done.

[June 14, 1843] I was resolved to act my best, and I think I never played Macbeth so well.

[October 23, 1843] Acted Macbeth equal, if not superior, as a whole, to any performance I have ever given of the character.

[January 19, 1844] Could not please myself in the performance of Hamlet. . . .

[March 1, 1844] Rehearsed King Lear, with a perfect consciousness of my utter inability to do justice to my own conception of the character.

[May 30, 1844] Acted Hamlet; the latter part, i. e., after the first act, in a really splendid style. I felt myself the man.

[November 21, 1845] Acted Hamlet as well, or better, than I ever did.

[January 12, 1846] Went to rehearsal, where I was much annoyed by the manifest indifference of those persons, who call themselves actors, in the scenes which I had several times rehearsed with them on Saturday. They made the very same mistakes, proving that they had never looked at their books, had made no memorandum, nor, in fact, ever thought upon the business for which they received the price of their daily bread.

[March 2, 1846] On reviewing the performance I can conscientiously pronounce it one of the very best I have given of Hamlet.

[May 11, 1846] Acted King Lear very languidly and not at all possessed with the character.

[June 18, 1847] Acted King Lear with much care and power, and was received by a most kind and sympathetic and enthusiastic audience.

[November 17, 1847] Acted Cardinal Wolsey, as I thought very well, to a very insensible audience. Am I deteriorating as I grow older?

[November 24, 1847] Acted Philip Van Artevelde ten times better than the last night.

[February 21, 1848] Acted Macbeth, I think, with peculiar strength, care, and effect. . . .

[December 2, 1848] Acted Hamlet with care and energy. . . .

[January 4, 1849] For the first time I saw in the glass to-day that I really am an old man. My mind does not feel old. . . .

[March 7, 1849] Acted Cardinal Richelieu; not to my satisfaction, being greatly disconcerted by – what? – Ha! upon how small a thing the success of an actor’s perfect identification depends–upon my beard being loose, and torturing me for four acts with the fear of its dropping off!!

[October 8, 1849] Acted Macbeth. . . . I never acted better, in many parts never so well, so feelingly and so true.

[January 18, 1850] Acted King Henry IV very well; and Lord Townly better, I think, than I have ever before done it.

[November 27, 1850] Acted Hamlet in my very, very best manner; it is the last time but one I shall ever appear in this wonderful character. . . . I acted with that feeling; I never acted better. I felt my allegiance to Shakespeare, the glorious, the divine. Was called and welcomed with enthusiasm.

[January 3, 1851] Acted Virginius, one of the most brilliant and powerful performances of the character I have ever given.

[January 16, 1851] Acted Virginius, for the last time, as I have scarcely ever -– no, never–acted it before; with discrimination, energy, and pathos, exceeding any former effort. The audience were greatly excited.

[January 22, 1851] Acted Iago with a vigour and discrimination that I have never surpassed, if ever equalled.

[February 26, 1851] Acted Macbeth as I never, never before acted it; with a reality, a vigour, a truth, a dignity that I never before threw into my delineation of this favourite character.

(quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, beginning on p. 123)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: a perfectionist

    To see close up the conviction of a perfectionist creator at work on a project, see below. To see panoramically the conviction of a perfectionist creator at work over a lifetime, see this coming Wednesday’s post.
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    Here is Saint-Exupéry in a letter defending his perfectionist nature, refusing to be pressured by his publisher into letting Flight to Arras go to press before he could give his message lasting expression:

Don’t tell me I’m wrong because my manuscript is “ready to go” and I won’t be making any major changes. I won’t make any great changes in the essential message – that’s true – but I’ll greatly change its impact. This is not a question of the material or the surface narrative. It’s something that only begins to exist when one no longer sees why. And I know exactly what changes to make. They involve something that I can’t define, which concerns the lasting quality of what I say. . . . Whenever I hear an echo, years later, from an article of mine . . . it is always, always, always an article that I rewrote thirty times. When I read a quotation of my own somewhere, it is always, always, always a phrase I rewrote twenty-five times. One sees no very noticeable difference between the first and last versions. It may even be that the final version seems less picturesque, but it is bound by an inner logic. It is a seed; the other was a plaything for a day. I have never, never, never been wrong about that. (quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p.132)

In defense of being deliberately picky

    In a letter to a friend, the poet Philip Larkin wrote:

Education should consist of helping a child to know its faculty – its ability, rather. Each man (generally) has one talent. Education should help him find it – should make the child say ‘of course’ as it recognises with delight what it has always potentially known. (quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 207)

   Is there truth in any part of this? Is there a one-person, one-talent relation? Should a career be chosen on grounds of great potential talent for it? If you have a great talent for making good investment decisions, should that set your course?

    Talent is means: is Larkin holding means above ends? What are the good ends of work? Shouldn’t education consist also of helping a child discover good ends and, particularly, a strong personal pull from one of them? Might lesser talent in service of such an end be preferable to greater talent in service of another end? What would Florence Nightingale think of Larkin’s idea?

    On the big questions of living, there are few categorical bests – categorical across all people. For Larkin and society, it was (I feel) best that he followed his one talent, writing poetry. For another and society, it’s best to be captured by one good end and then try one’s hardest to develop the means for it.
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    This post contains an illustration of a method for discovering ideas: take a quotation and question it to death. Sometimes the questions lead to insightful ideas (question them relentlessly too).

    It’s hard to get ideas from a dead stop. It’s much easier when you make a preliminary move. The parallel in golf is the waggle that prompts the backswing.

Taking undergraduate courses out of sequence

    Imagine that college undergraduates took their courses in reverse order: senior level courses first, junior level next, freshman level last. Are there fields of study for which this would hardly matter, with the students scoring as well as expected on exams, and employers unable to detect anything amiss?

    At one extreme there is learning in series, where each subject cannot be well learned unless prior subjects have been well learned. At the other extreme there is learning that can be done in parallel, where each subject can be well learned at any time in college, no matter how well the other subjects have been learned.

    Would it be possible to impose learning in series on all fields? If possible, would it be good to do? Could every journalism course, say, be designed to depend on other courses in the curriculum? If so, would this be beneficial to the education of journalists? Or would it be harmful?

    For each field of study, what mix of learning in series, and learning in parallel, is optimum? Or is this a silly question?

    If there are fields for which learning in parallel is common, does this risk leading to courses that are a grab bag of knowledge and skills, of questionable necessity to mastering the fields?

    Which fields of study need capstone courses? Which don’t? Or do all need them? Or do all don’t?

The cerebrum: our most special speciality

    Let’s begin this blog with the inductive argument in one of Cole Porter’s songs: “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Let's do it, let's fall in love.” He runs through a list –- birds, bees, fleas, sponges, oysters, clams, jellyfish, shad roe and more -- concluding that all forms of life do it (hermaphrodites aside), and because humans are one of the forms, they do it; and so they very probably ought to do it.

    It happens that the writer T. H. White uses a similar inductive argument to take us to the point where the obvious conclusion is that we ought to create our minds. In a letter to L. J. Potts (January 8, 1941) he writes:

What is right or wrong (for a species)? Well, I can only suppose that it is Right for a species to progress in doing what ever it does. It would be quite wrong for a tortoise to attempt flight. It has no wings. In the end, you come down to the idea that a species must specialize in its own speciality. Follow that up, and you find that what is right for man depends upon his speciality, his wings, tail, beak, backbone, fins, antennae or whatever his most special speciality may be. And you will find that his most s. s. is his cerebrum. This (not the cerebellum) is as much overdeveloped in Man, as a species as, for instance, the nose of an elephant is overdeveloped from my nose. (quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p.169)

    In other words: I have these several pounds of flesh in my head, my cerebrum. It’s my most special speciality. It’s a container meant to hold my mind: the ethereal organ of thinking, feeling, empathy, language, foresight, imagination, memory and more. White’s pointing out my most special speciality leaves me with questions. Should I let my mind form haphazardly or should I force its creation? And if I should create it, to what end? And how best to do it?

    I like White’s remarks and their implications. I like education justified without the threat of penalty (or reward of money), as with “Better go to school and study hard and learn or you won’t get a good job.” I like thinking it’s as right and beautiful for quail to do their most special thing, which includes sauntering along the beach in good quail company, as it is right and beautiful for Roger Folk do his most special thing, painting their sauntering. I like quail and all the animals and plants and Roger Folk to be in the answer of “What should I do with my life?”
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    Winter’s coming. If you haven’t read it, consider a warming cup of tea with T. H. White’s The Once and Future King.”