Category: 2015 art works

There is an old movie called Galaxy Quest, about a group of actors who, having enjoyed better days (professionally and in their personal lives), still perform together occasionally at Mall Openings and conventions. Their common bond is the fact that, long ago, they all starred in a successful TV Sci-fi show (of the same name as the title).

The movie has its moments, particularly at the start when they are kidnapped by an alien race and get embroiled in the middle of a war with a planet of lizards. It is a simple case of mistaken identity.

It seems that the aliens picked-up the TV signals in space and thought that the crappy TV show episodes were in fact historical documents about a group of invincible warriors who saved planets from extinction, while in fact we know they were a bunch of semi-retired second rate actors doing weekly shows in front of cardboard sets.

This movie always comes to mind, not because it is anything outstanding, but because almost every time I give a lecture about creativity or art I get asked by professionals, artists and university students alike, about what are in my mind the most important aspects that help in building a successful career.

Success is many things to many people, and I am not going to try to define it here. Suffice to say that I am assuming that we are talking about attaining some of what we search in life (it may be recognition, love, a family, money, power, a career, and so on).

Furthermore, I am in favor of defining success and failure in every aspect of our lives if we wish, and as we wish. In my case, I let others run races set by someone else. I run my own.

And that may be the first point. You are the master of your own life. You set your destination, and it is up to you to decide how you wish to go about it. I am a great believer that the power of “we” is far superior to the power of “me”, but I have to know where I am going before I can invite others to tag along, or join up with others in their journey.

Many concepts can be added on from there – creativity, solidarity, positive thinking, conscience, ethics, hard work, intelligence, responsibility, self-discipline, clairvoyance of sorts, and so on -, but there is one that is a must. One which to me is so important that it may help to bring you over the other side even when you lack some of those qualities.

In “Galaxy Quest” they keep repeating the catch phrase of the show, which happens to be “Never give up! Never surrender!”. In fact the whole movie is based on this very premise. Not giving up and not surrendering (no matter how ridiculous, scary, or ridiculously scary the situation may be). What they are talking about is nothing more than “resilience”.

Merrian-Webster defines the concept of resilience in general as “the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress”.

That, translated to a human capacity, refers to a quality that allows some people to absorb pressure and failure, and convert it into something positive. The old fashion “taking on the knocks and coming back stronger than ever” attitude.

Some people innately have this quality. Yet for others, it is a matter of learning. Psychologists have identified some of the factors that will categorize someone as resilient.

The most common seems to be optimism. It does not mean blindness to reality. It just means having a positive attitude even after being burned down. It means doing a Phoenix like flip and rising from the ashes. It means taking on apparent failure and turning it into a lesson on the way to success. It makes people capable of adapting intelligently and quickly to change, adjusting their outlook promptly and soldiering on.

Resilience is at the essence of very successful people (whether they are at the top of the corporate heap or are just a great mum or dad). It is what keeps us going our way when everyone else is also telling us to go, but away.

Sometimes, hitting the proverbial wall has to do with schemas, pre-formatted ideas people have about how things “should” be (many companies also have them and they show up, for example, when seeking new personnel). Sometimes there are other issues and we should always revise our own attitudes as well (it is not a matter of simply placing blame somewhere else either).

But that adaptability, resistance, aptitude and attitude is what allows us to take in responses from others that feel, very often, like a slap in the face and comeback with the best scorecard we have ever done. It means jumping over, letting go by, or simply ignoring the negatives along the way so we can make it to where we want to go.

One great example of this was recently given by Jack Ma. He said: “I failed 3 times in college. I applied 30 times to get a job but I have always been rejected. When KFC came to China for the first time, we were 24 to apply and I was the only one to be dismissed. I wanted to go into the police and out of 5 postulants, I was the only one not to be accepted. I applied 10 times to return to Harvard and I was rejected. Never give up because you failed once, twice…just understand that failure is only how we are shown another way to reach our intended route”.

Just in case you don´t know, Jack Ma is the founder of Alibaba, which together with Amazon are the two largest e-commerce websites in the world. He is also the 22^nd richest person in the world with $29.8 billion dollars, according to Forbes.

So…just never give up, never surrender. Learn, adapt, spring back, and find your way to your own kind of success.

Until next time,

Ignacio

©2016 by Ignacio Alperin Bruvera

In a world where information is being sent to us at incredible speed and with unconceivable depths; where we are also producing, inadvertently, data beyond our understanding; in a civilization that is advancing technologically beyond what the educational system can cope with; at a time when the knowledge of how things work is in more and more hands; and the technology which allows us to make them is in less and less hands; the role of the creative mind must evolve as well.

Now, evolving does not necessarily mean going freaky! It does not inevitably mean developing at the same speed the ability to digest all that is thrown to us, as well as rehashing it in new ways.

In fact, it may mean something completely different.

One of the biggest misconceptions on the theory of evolution, just to bring this point forward, is that the mechanism of natural selection – central to the theory – and which may result in improved abilities to survive and reproduce, should necessarily mean that the outcome is progressive.

As it happens, this is clearly not so.

What is called natural selection under the theory, does not produce organisms perfectly suited to their environments, as it is commonly misinterpreted. What it means, really, is that these organisms through different traits and skills are “good enough” to survive.

So evolving may mean, in simple terms, adapting survival characteristics which may be new, or even reacquiring qualities and attributes that were useful before, were lost for one or more generations due to environmental or social changes, and now have become of importance once again.

So how does this translate to the information age?

Well, it means for a start that the role of a creative professional is not to keep up with the speed of change but with change itself. In sporting terms, the creative thinker may be more like a long distance runner than a sprinter.

Secondly, being creative means being open to novelty and interested in everything. I always call myself “an encyclopedia of useless information”, this said with a glint in my eye, as I know very well that I gather information that most will discard for a good reason. To me, it is never useless.

But I must learn to choose what I digest. So the other evolutive step for a XXIst Century creative mind, may be then going back rather than forward. Specifically, to XIXth Century London and perhaps pay a visit to a certain sleuth who lived at 221b Baker Street.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the great detective, Sherlock Holmes, based on a doctor named Joseph Bell whom Doyle admired for his quick logical interpretation as a physician, as well as for his “Method” of deductive reasoning (“Observe carefully, deduce shrewdly, and confirm with evidence”).

Bell turned detective became, in late 1886 and thanks to the pen of Conan Doyle, none other than the great Sherlock.

The role of the creative individual is very similar to the role of the detective. It involves keen observation, careful deduction, asking the right questions, having the correct basic knowledge, and above all, connecting all the dots (coming up with a hypothesis that is not necessarily constricted by a traditional structure).

In a world where information surpasses us, while technology seems to be speeding up way ahead, becoming like the road runner may be the wrong approach.

It may be that I enjoy going against the wave, but if everything speeds up, I usually slow down (and vice versa). Creative reasoning and creative thinking in a slow moving environment allows for swiftness. While if everybody rushes, our role is to slow down.

Like Neo in the Matrix, our advantage is that of being capable of decelerating everything down to the point where we are actually so cognitively enhanced that, in reality and for everyone else for that matter, we are indeed ahead of the curve.

And to do that, a bit of XIXth Century deductive reasoning may be the thing. Evolution may mean in this case, for example, simply slowing down; perhaps taking on a musical instrument – and not necessarily a violin -; or being involved in long periods of apparent daydreaming. In that mental estate, your mind will be doing its best detective work, and your deductive skills will allow you to see and connect the dots that no one else has managed to yet perceive.

Until next time.

Ignacio

©2016 by Ignacio Alperin Bruvera