doing is moving us forward? What are we benchmarking ourselves against?
“Great passions are maladies without hope,” as Goethe once said. Which
is why a deliberate, purposeful person operates on a different level, beyond
the sway or the sickness. They hire professionals and
use them. They ask
questions, they ask what could go wrong, they ask for examples. They plan
for contingencies. Then they are off to the races. Usually they get started with
small steps,
complete them, and look for feedback on how the next set can be
better. They lock in gains, and then get better as they go, often leveraging
those gains to grow exponentially rather than arithmetically.
Is an iterative approach less exciting than manifestos, epiphanies, flying
across the country to
surprise someone, or sending four-thousand-word
stream-of-consciousness e-mails in the middle of the night? Of course. Is it
less glamorous and bold than going all in and maxing out your credit cards
because you believe in yourself? Absolutely. Same goes for the spreadsheets,
the meetings, the trips, the phone calls, software, tools,
and internal systems
—and every how-to article ever written about them and the routines of
famous people. Passion is form over function. Purpose is function, function,
function.
The critical work that you want to do will require your deliberation and
consideration. Not passion. Not naïveté.
It’d be far better if you were intimidated by what lies ahead—humbled by
its magnitude and determined to see it through regardless. Leave passion for
the amateurs. Make it about what you feel you
must do and say, not what you
care about and wish to be. Remember Talleyrand’s epigram for diplomats,
“Surtout, pas trop de zèle” (“Above all, not too much zeal”). Then you will
do great things. Then you will stop being your old,
good-intentioned, but
ineffective self.
I
FOLLOW THE CANVAS STRATEGY
Great men have almost always shown themselves as ready to obey as they afterwards
proved able to command.
—LORD M AHON
n the Roman system of art and science, there existed a concept for which
we have only a partial analog. Successful businessmen, politicians, or rich
playboys would subsidize a number of writers,
thinkers, artists, and
performers. More than just being paid to produce works of art, these artists
performed a number of tasks in exchange for protection, food, and gifts. One
of the roles was that of an
anteambulo—literally meaning “one who clears
the path.” An
anteambulo proceeded in front of his patron anywhere they
traveled in Rome, making way, communicating messages,
and generally
making the patron’s life easier.
The famous epigrammist Martial fulfilled this role for many years, serving
for a time under the patron Mela, a wealthy businessman and brother of the
Stoic philosopher and political adviser Seneca. Born without a rich family,
Martial also served under another businessman named Petilius. As a young
writer, he spent most of his day traveling from the home of one rich patron to
another,
providing services, paying his respects, and receiving small token
payments and favors in return.
Here’s the problem: like most of us with our internships and entry-level
positions (or later on, publishers or bosses or clients), Martial absolutely
hated every minute of it. He seemed to believe that this system somehow
made him a slave. Aspiring to live like some country squire,
like the patrons
he serviced, Martial wanted money and an estate that was all his own. There,
he dreamed, he could finally produce his works in peace and independence.
As a result, his writing often drags with a hatred and bitterness about Rome’s
upper crust, from which he believed he was cruelly shunted aside.
For all his impotent rage, what Martial couldn’t see was that it was his
unique position as an outsider to society that gave him such fascinating
insight into Roman culture that it survives to this day. Instead of being pained
by such a system, what if he’d been able to come to terms with it? What if—
gasp—he could have appreciated the opportunities it offered? Nope. It
seemed to eat him up inside instead.
It’s a common attitude that transcends generations and societies. The
angry, unappreciated genius is forced to do stuff she doesn’t like, for people
she doesn’t respect, as she makes her way in the world.
How dare they force
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
