How to invite serendipitous discovery into your work

    The word serendipity comes from Horace Walpole’s writing the following to a correspondent in 1754:

I once read a silly fairy tale called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of. . . . No discovery of a thing you are looking for comes under this description. . . .

One point to notice is that we discover ideas; another, that we discover feelings. The accidental discovery of an idea or a feeling is a serendipitous discovery.

Of the ideas we need for solving the problems of our work, not all may be available through our work. Key ideas are in outlying activities, apparently unrelated to our work, to be found by chance.

To invite serendipitous discovery, spend six or so hours every week in an enjoyable activity that is unlike your main work. This will possibly give you ideas that fit into the incomplete puzzles of your work, bringing them closer to completion, at times completing one.

I know my experience best. For some hours a week, for enjoyment I read pre-1950 essays on art, medicine, history, music, theater, physics, mathematics, autobiography, and more. I search for nothing specific, yet unpredictably the reading turns up ideas that go into my work interests in science, education, creativity, responsibility, and the material value of wilderness.

Unless I miss my guess, for every line of work and worker in the line there is an outlying activity that will be most fruitful with serendipitous discoveries. The special activity is found by trial and error. I’ve found mine to be reading old essays.

In a future Sauntering post, we’ll examine the possibilities and benefits of discovering new feelings.
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Serendipitous discovery in science is well explained and illustrated in James H. Austin’s book Chase, Chance, and Creativity.

Comments

[Mark Rasmussen]

For me, it's driving long distances through open landscapes. Most productive stretches for me: Pendelton to Baker City, Twin Falls to Tremonton, Kennewick to Spokane, Couer d'Alene to Missoula, Missoula to Dillon. Can't think of many good ideas I've had travelling on I-5, though.

Ken Ford, the crusty old founder of Roseburg Lumber Company, would not allow radios in the company trucks, nor would he allow foresters to have computers. While the most of the big family owned companies have disappeared -- victims of mergers, acquistions, corporate raiders, TIMOs, recessions, imports -- Roseburg is still going strong. Could it be that Ford found the edge?