Adapting To Inspiration

19^th century German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said:

"And Those Who Were Seen Dancing Were Thought to Be Mad by Those Who Couldn't Hear the Music."

Obviously Mr. Nietzsche was speaking metaphorically. By Dancers, Nietzsche was describing the misfits; the outsiders, those we don't understand, and we think they're crazy, mad, and insane. Those who don't conform do not follow the norm. But why they behaved in such manner? I believe the answer lays in the last part of Nietzsche’s maxim: Music. Those who danced were awe struck; they received a form of inspiration. And in this post I'd like to explore the importance of Inspiration.

Professionals today speak about or read about stepping out of Comfort Zones, handling Leadership Challenges, Empowerment, being Creative & Innovative, etc… but in this post, I'd like to investigate beyond those broad themes. I'd like to talk about Inspiration, or as Nietzsche referred to it: Music. I firstly need to investigate why we tend to lose inspiration. Secondly, how to attain it? Thirdly, and most importantly: understanding that inspiration is not a thing, but a process, and we need to adapt to it.

To unify perspectives, let's define inspiration: according to Oxford English Dictionary Inspiration is: “A breathing in or infusion of some idea, purpose, etc. into the mind; the suggestion, awakening, or creation of some feeling or impulse, especially of an exalted kind.”

Why Inspiration matters? Why do lose it? Why can't everyone hear the Music? And how to gain it again? Those are important questions, don't you agree with me?

In order to answer those questions, we need to study a situation that occurred in Rural India. India, despite being a major player in Global Economy, suffers greatly from poverty. Its population has low rates life expectancy and literacy, and high rates of pollution and corruption.

In Rural India, where two-thirds of Indians live, electricity is scarce and only one in four homes has a toilet. And in there, Economists, Anthropologists and Sociologists have noticed a strange crisis. In those rural villages giving birth to a girl is more costly than a boy. Girls don't go to schools. Women were not t allowed to work professionally, unlike men who can make an income. Also, weddings and dowry are the Bride's burden.

In one study, 51% of the Husbands in those villages said it's okay to beat their women. But more heartbreakingly, when the Wives were asked if it's okay to be beaten by Husbands, 54% said yes.

Sometimes, when you lack inspiration, your greatest enemy is yourself.

Government created an initiative called: Apni Beti, Apna Dhan (My Daughter, My Pride), in which they paid Mothers not to have abortions if they were pregnant with girls. Also, there were social projects to lend women money to start their own businesses. Those attempts had little success.

And by the way: this dire situation didn't occur two or three centuries ago. Those studies occurred over the 1980s and 1990s.

However, this was true until the year 2000. Two Economists: professor Emily Oster of Chicago University, and Robert Jensen of the University of California, noticed a radical change of behavior over the next three years. In their study of 180 rural villages, they observed that in some Villages, Women were less likely to tolerate beatings by their husbands. They started developing a sense of autonomy and started working. Girls started going to schools. Men started helping with the kitchen work.

What made those Villages special? What sort of inspiration they received that brought about this change? The Economists discovered that between 2001 and 2003, the villages where women were empowered have received electricity, and what did electricity bring? An old invention called the TV!

When those women gathered around TV and watched women in the rest of the World, and outside the walls of their World, they realized that there is something very wrong in the way of their lives. And that changed how they think, thus they become autonomous, and eventually saved their lives.

In fact a study that was conducted at the University of Stanford tells us about the effects of being inspired, of being struck by Awe. Awe, or Inspiration alters our view of the world, stimulates new mental models, enhances well-being, and develops a sense of compassion, altruism, philanthropy, selflessness. We actually reconfigure how we view the world.

Is this how inspiration is attained? By external influences? Can we only be inspired under certain circumstances?  This was true in the case of the Indian Women.

We as human have been seeking awe for ages: we travel to new places where nature strikes us. We watch movies that move us. We listen to Music that trances us. We read novels that make us tear. We all yearn for that journey that refreshes us. This way, contemplating the beauties of everyday life attains us awe and inspiration.

But those are short-lived bursts of inspiration. Hardly sustainable and we often revert back to what we were. Thus the question becomes: can we cultivate Inspiration internally? Embrace it? I believe we can.

First we need to understand that Inspiration is not a sort of divine gift that a few of us receive and others don't. It is our job to seek that inspiration, to manufacture it, to design it. The 'Some of us have and others don't' argument simply is inaccurate. What is accurate is that some of us might respond or not respond to it, and this is due to intricate reasons of intelligence, social-economical statuses, cultures and environments, psychological well-being, internal drive, mentorship, etc.…

So why some of us don’t respond to inspiration? Because it means operating outside the norm, appearing unreasonable, mad, insane, or crazy. Unfortunately we became too complaint; too obedient; too passive. We became Machine-Like. Followers of the Norm.

As result we ignore our true passion and true selves to please someone else. We became a copy of someone else's vision and we forgot our true own selves. We don't try. We become Risk Averse and avert endeavors where failure is probability. Failure and fear of failure paralyze us.

But I want to argue that only by accepting the probability of failure that we can sustain inspiration.

Please note here that when I say Failure, I don't mean being incompetent, or lazy, or inattentive. Rather being a Risk Taker, an Adventurous, by plunging oneself into the unknown.

So how can we reach that man that represents our most inner self? It's a mindset. 

It is what Gilda Rander called Delicious Ambiguity, which is taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what is going to happen next. 

What poet John Kates called Negative Capability, which is what goes to making a Man of Achievement, who's comfortable with uncertainty.

To be what Theodore Roosevelt called The Man in the Arena, whose face is marred in dust and blood and sweat.

Adapting and sustaining inspiration require overcoming our insecurity and fear of humiliation and willingness to take social risks. This mindset is about facing the probability of failure and accepting it and embracing it. Because only by this adaption we can reclaim Inspiration, we can hear that Music.

So how can we adapt to this mindset?

In his book: David And Goliath, author Malcolm Gladwell shares with us a notion from Psychology. This notion is called Desirable Difficulties; which basically describes how adding challenges to the existing task, willingly or unwillingly, makes us perform optimally. In other words, the more we embrace this probability, the more resilient we become. While some people capitalize on their existing Talents and succeed, some people have to invest on their lack of talents to succeed. And the latter is not easy. But in the Language of Success we know that what is learned out of necessity is certainly more powerful than what is given.

Malcolm Gladwell provides an extraordinary example from the book.

Do you know a person named Gary Cohn?

Gary was born in 1960, and when he went to school, he didn't understand why he faced difficulties reading texts and paragraphs as his classmates did. He suffered from Dyslexia, a sight disease that makes Reading almost impossible, and just to give you a sense of how difficult that is: spell a glass of water on a paper and try to read it. 

He had a very difficult time in school that he was expelled. He says that teachers thought he was a disruptive kid. He says that during those years, when he was about 7 years old, his classmates thought he was an idiot, and he tried to fit, a very difficult task, because in doing so, he is risking humiliation. He says "everyday I'd wake us and say: today will be better." But that never happened; he called his education years the Ugly Years, and "probably the most frustrating part of my life."

His parents took him from one school to another. His mom just wanted him to graduate from High School and she said it doesn't matter if he becomes a Truck Driver. 

After graduation, he worked at a job selling Window Frames. And one day he decided to visit Wall Street in New York. He was interested in the business of Trading and he was there looking for a job opportunity. But the market was closing and he almost lost his opportunity. Suddenly he saw a well-dressed man getting to a taxi, and he thought that he looked important. So he approached him and asked him if he can share the taxi with him. And in that ride, Cohen learnt that this man was part of a Brokerage Firm in Wall Street, and he managed to convince him that he knew about Trading, and to get him a job interview at his Firm. At the end of taxi ride, they agreed to meet on Monday. Between the times they met and of the interview, Cohen read about Trading, and when he had the interview, he was accepted to the firm. Today, Cohn leads a very prosperous career; he is the President of Goldman Sachs, one of the world’s most important Investment Banks.

This was a man whose mother wished he could become a Truck Driver. His teachers thought he was a disruptive kid. His classmates thought he was an idiot. And he had to fight his way through all these accusations. In the Taxi Ride, the hardships he adapted to in the Schoolyard helped him to convince the Wall Street man that he is worthy of an interview. And he was granted one. What if the Wall Street man rejected him and dismissed him? Cohen might have embarrassed himself, but it would have been Okay, because that is a risk he had to accept, like every other situation in his childhood. All the difficulties and failures of his childhood compensated him with the opportunity of his lifetime.

Gray Cohn says: My upbringing allowed me to be comfortable with Failure.

Adapting to the requirements of inspiration isn’t easy, but once made, it’s very fruitful. That is probably what Bernard Shaw meant when he said: ‘the reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man.’

And so: be the unreasonable man who changes the World.

Where Good Ideas Fade To?

The Greek poet Hesiod, writing around 800 B.C., cautioned not to 'put your work off till tomorrow and the day after.' The Roman consul Cicero called this delay “hateful” in the conduct of affairs. The conduct Hesiod and Cicero had cautioned us off centuries is still relevant and prevalent. Today, we call it procrastination; we have been told often to combat it, as its consequences are dire ones.

But I believe we seldom address the root of this conduct. Why do we become excited about a good idea, and then somewhere along the way this excitement fades away? How many good books ideas were shelved? How many entrepreneurial projects were canceled? How many lovers concealed their emotions? And why do often see mediocre people producing plenty (mediocrely, obviously) while smart genuine people are less productive? Why does perfectionism hinder us?

I think that all of the above is more coherent than they appear, and yet procrastination is less straight forward than we tend to perceive.

This essay is an investigation of self-motivated individuals who yarn to achieve creative, risky, and uncharted ideas but forewent those ideas. Why do they do that?

Vik Nithy, a psychology student at the University of New South Wales, tells us that procrastination is a mental argument between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. The Prefrontal Context is the strict rigid part that keeps reminding us that we need to remain fit, we should save money, and work on our assignments. The Limbic System is the delinquent, the primitive part of our brains, the one that entices us to scan social media and develops a sudden interest in weather channels.

'So why is that the limbic system always seems to win the argument?' asks Nithy. To answer this question, Nithy micros in on a specific and central part of the Limbic System: Amygdala, the part that controls fear and anxiety, and the fight-of-flight response to threatening stimulus, because at times of stress, say: a truck is bearing down the street on you, the Prefrontal Context shuts down, and you lose the ability of sifting through your options, so Amygdala makes a jump to safe side.

Similarly: procrastination is a manifestation of a mild anxiety response where the Prefrontal Context mildly shuts down. An apt question here is: what are we afraid of? When facing an unpleasant task, we fear failure; and this is a far more crippling fear then we might like to think. We don’t want that conformation that we are not smart enough or not good enough, so instead of admitting our mediocrity our mind blames an alternative: laziness, shortage of time, ambiguity of the task, lack of resources, the list is quite endless. It's much easier to say: 'I'm lazy', than to say 'I'm a failure'. It's easier to say: 'I could have worked hard', than to say 'I worked hard and but I'm not smart enough'. We dismiss failure as, to quote Nithy, 'a positive learning experience'.

So a solution here would be a proper planning, and this leads to taming and training the prefrontal context. This is easier said than done: Dave Grossman, author of On Killing, says that at times of heightened stress people dial 411 instead of 911, or don't press dial on their cell phone. 'You must rehearse it,' Grossman says, 'because only if you have rehearsed it will it be there.' Rehearsal is the key to controlling the prefrontal context and diminishing the role of Amygdala and, sequentially, limbic system.

Let's not forget the other important component: redefining failure from a 'shameful experience' to 'an integral part of the process.'

When we rethink positively the way we think our habits, we can shape the world as we desire.

Let's take the concept of procrastination a step further. Suppose we were possessed by an idea, we do the homework: study the previous and potential market, the competitors, etc… but somewhere in process we stop. We get caught up in the technicalities that it hinder us; somewhere in the back of our minds we dread the task, we perceive it to be too bulky, or that we might do it injustice, and that if we failed, criticism would be harsh.

In a journal of psychotherapy titled Metacognitive Beliefs About Procrastination, a group of British PhD holders described Decisional Procrastination as the purposive delay in the making decisions within a certain time frame. But what if we reached a point of forgoing the decision? We end up burying the good idea. But most importantly: what leads us to that status?

I think it's important that we address the clutter that hinders our decision mechanism.

This is a problem that was addressed in the mid-20^th century, and it's known Information Overload (also known as Information Glut, Data Smog, Infobesity and Infoxication). This problem is more evident in our current time and age where internet provided us information in abundance. In his 1964 book The Managing of Organizations, author Bertram Gross, “Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a system exceeds its processing capacity. Decision makers have fairly limited cognitive processing capacity. Consequently, when information overload occurs, it is likely that a reduction in decision quality will occur.”

This, consequently, leads to a psychological phenomenon known as the Curse of Knowledge, which is said to occur because better informed individuals fail to ignore the privileged knowledge that they possess, thus 'cursed' and unable to sell their products at a value that less-informed counterparts would view acceptable.

With all of this, is it any wonder that a many great ideas fade away? And unless we manage to achieve balance between decision making and information overload, the situation won't improve.

The mediocre performers aren't usually concerned with these threats, their vision is limited by a contemporary trend, consequently they don't think afar and they don't suffer the information overload. In the literature of psychology this is known as Dunning–Kruger effect; this cognitive bias leads illusory superiority, meaning that mediocre individuals rate their ability much higher than its actual status. Charles Darwin famously said: 'Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.'

This illusory mindset is observable when individuals are more interested in celebritism rather than genuinity. They want to make a kill. They are interested in seeing their names atop headlines rather than intellectual contribution. Thus, for example, they want to be a writer, rather than writing well.

And why are mediocre performers well received? I think Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, answered it aptly “… the abundance of information people are exposed to through technology-based sources could be having an impact on the thought process, obstructing deep thinking, understanding, impedes the formation of memories and makes learning more difficult.'

And this leads to a more critical point: what often escape our mind is the unseen consequences of procrastination: depression, low self-esteem and poor performance. But sometimes those symptoms dissolve as we walk to a cunning trap: Self-Reproach. Oscar Wilde best described the hazards of this trap: ‘There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.’ When we reach that false absolution, we often cease redemption. And this manifests also greatly among the Perfectionists; they have the luxury of saying: 'I tried to commit to my high standards, and I couldn’t accept something less'. And thus they walk away from the idea, unaware of the self-handicapping excuse they used.

We need to acknowledge that no one starts perfect; be that musicians, athletes, writers, public speakers, chess players. Read the following account by Philip Norman, the author of Shout!, the Beatles biography, one of the most celebrated bands of the 20^th century: 'They were no good onstage when they went there and they were very good when they came back... They weren't disciplined onstage at all before that. But when they came back, they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.'

Here is an account by band member John Lennon years later: 'we got better and we got more confidence.'

Rehearsing, balancing between decision making and information overload, and progressing through failure to excellence are weapons to combat procrastination. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said 'No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it.'

 

And Life Slips Away

While reading a page about a pretty girl in the elevator, a pretty girl walked into the elevator, but he didn't notice the pretty girl that walked into the elevator, because he was busy reading the page about the pretty girl in the elevator

On Art

In his timeless classic Walden, Henry David Thoreau wrote: 'I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour.'

I once heard a great thinker arguing that a painting costs more than a loaf of bread; despite that we can’t survive on painting, yet we are willing to pay. What possess us to do such thing?

Artists endure, thus they create Art. Art inspires doing, yet artists don’t. The great Thomas Pine wrote his influential pamphlet Common Sense only to inspire George Washington to lead a revolt against the British. Leo Tolstoy’s essay Kingdom of God is Within You inspired in Gandhi the sense liberation and simplistic life style. It was Emerson who intellectually lectured on antislavery, but Abraham Lincoln led the armies after attending his lectures. It was Thoreau who wrote Civil Disobedience, but Martin Luther King, Jr. championed the Civil Rights movements. 

Did Machiavelli or Milton or Sartre lead revolutions and revolts? No, they led intellectual revolutions and revolts; it was the job of those influenced to execute anarchy and wars. 

Perhaps we buy the painting because it inspires us.

Are Artists passive? Is Art, as Mr. Wile once described it, useless? He once said that 'A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. That is all that is to be said about our relations to flowers. Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. It is not part of its essence. It is accidental. It is a misuse.’ I ask here: are those accidentals and misuses are horrible outcomes? Is wrong of me to pair philosophers and their written heritage with Art? Then why would Mr. Wilde incept his masterpiece of a novel with a preface on Art?

I possess little knowledge to answer that.

On Success

If I were to use an analogy to describe success, in my mind rock climbing is an apt one. 

Paired with risk, adventure, autonomy and a constant tackling of the unknown, success in Rock Climbing requires momentous endeavors; for one has to possess the heart, the strength and ambition.

But the aspect of Rock Climbing I wish to expound is of a different nature; it’s broader, and, I hope, if explained justly, we could understand the intricacies of success.

When a person decides to devote himself to this sport, and for him to climb the thorny mountains, he undergoes extraordinary amounts of technical preparation. This is attained in a place known as the climbing gym, where the novices train tirelessly on artificially constructed walls with grips for hands and feet. It is a daunting discipline; it requires deliberate practice, profound mentorship and plenty of patience.But once that is done; once migrated to the outdoors; once the sun replaces the neon-light; once edgy stones replace the artificial grips; once a mere robe replaces the safe trampoline, the odds escalate to astronomical proportions. The adrenaline level is irrepressible; fear of heights is more menacing; hot breaths evaporate rapidly; the limbs tremble and quiver; palms sweat ceaselessly; teeth grind against each other agonizingly. This time it is not artificial; it is life.

As the Climber and the companions ascend from the foot of the mountain, they accumulate inches, and those inches translate to inches of success, if he mistakes, the process corrects him, but in a costly manner.
The further the Climber and the companions ascend, the smaller those who observe them appear; they matter less now. The more those inches of success accumulate, the more perilous the passages becomes. The Climber is aware that one faulty step will drag him a few inches back; he can’t bare it; it consumes more effort, more time. And while the adversaries grin, the supporters distress. The group he leads counts on him as he explores unfamiliar territories; as he places his palms where varmints could be lurking. His decisions are half made; uncertain.

The Climber ascends in a pace that allows his group to be in tandem; he can’t go too fast and ignore them, nor can he go too slow and impend them. If he loses sight of the balance, his journey will be a lonely one; he might ascend to the top alone, or he might descend to the bottom alone.

And such is life: a man is prepped to endeavor his passage with and for those ones he loves, family, friends and followers. The greater he ascends, the more liabilities he accumulates. He can’t distract himself by the adversaries; their negativity might cripple him. And he can’t over celebrate with his supporters; that ecstasy might elude him in to comfort.

He can’t be afraid of accumulating inches, for the disadvantages of stagnation are direr.

On Intellect

Seldom in my inquiries I have received a consistent definition of Intellect, most people erroneously pair it with the act of reading books; but I have met many people who read plentiful, whilst conforming to the doctrinaire of the herd. That is a fallacy that I wish to abolish. Did reading, universally, symbolize acquiring knowledge?

In light of this, I wish to rearticulate Intellect as the manner of perceiving intricate foreign ideas, liberated from dogmas. Dogmas are the archenemy of intellect, for intellect stems out of unprejudiced contemplation; a man who passively reads books that were written to his joy and his complicacy, would be underprepared or unprepared to the views of rest of the world, and thus he follows either of two paths: he plunges deeper to his dogmatic ways, where he replicates the immoderate unfitting conducts of his forefathers. Or he contemplates the revelations of what he read, thus he shall attain the universality of thought, and onward he shall meet people of foreign tongues and lands, but reincarnations of thoughts and experiences, regardless of the minor variations; each mind, fundamentally, has their agenda and aspirations. And thus, there exists no absolute intellect, only glimpses of men who strived, and those we tend to idolize.

I once met a man who read Moby Dick, and deemed it as the endeavors of Captain Ahab hunting the White Whale and failed because the Whale is a monstrosity. Whilst another man, benefiting from a religious context, deemed it as Satan hunting God, and he failed because God is might. Another, benefiting from a secular context, deemed it as Man’s attempt to control Nature, and he failed, because Nature is untamable.

Men of intellect seldom speak in absoluteness; they’re privy to their fallibility, to what’s beyond their comprehension and to the vastness and assortments of human genius. This I can say this in absoluteness.

Another archenemy of intellect is pride, the great sin of Lucifer and Hubris. A verse from the Proverbs 18 says: Before his downfall a man's heart is proud, but humility comes before honor. Malcolm X had a humbling experience that liberated him. True men of intellect are often the progenies of certain morbidness; Life humbles men that way.

Aristotle described the prideful as a person who’s a victim of his own gratifications. Pride cripples a man from reading the other’s mind. And therefore he possesses no intellect. Mind you, intellect is not to agree, but to appreciate; they are not mutually exclusive, but also, in brilliant marriages, they can align.

Lest of the perils of pride, Marcus Aurelius appointed a servant to follow him when he entered the gates of Rome whispering to his ear: you are just a man, to fortify himself against the praise of mob. He was wise.

Another crippler of intellect is willful obedience to the teachings of fellowmen. It disallows our faculties from inspecting their façade.

Thomas Jefferson wistfully championed that it is the right of Man to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; alas, he was profiteering from his plantation slave farms.

When Voltaire learnt of Isaac Newton’s fondness of magic, he made great efforts to conceal this fact in his publications of Newton. Hadn’t been for Economist Kinsey it might have remained unearthed. Does Voltaire’s behavior suit a man of intellect? Should this dismiss his formidable contribution to philosophy? I can’t supply an answer, but I ask of you this: would you rather be a Voltaire? Or a Kinsey? Yet who is privy to Kinsey’s intellectual mischiefs himself? The prospects are windingly endless. But we mustn’t forget Rumi’s filed beyond the fields of right-doing and wrong-doing. There lays grayness between whiteness and blackness of life.

Thus I say true intellect is the perusal of greater good, which demands contemplation liberated from ignorance, arrogance, pride and dogmatism.

I shall conclude with this: motives of the intellectual must be driven from within, thus he himself sets the standards of what ought to be and how it ought to be. If the motives were external ones, then his intellect will be his damnation, for he shall frantically measure it against alternating variables. And he is likely to deem himself a deceptionist and thus inherent a sense of inferiority, and his genius would be a squander.