Industry v. creativity.
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Godin is contrasting two patterns: the “industrial system” and “the practice.”
Chapter 2: The Pattern and the Practice
Notes
The “industrial economy” or “industrial system”:
- Compliance, convenience, status, consumption, obedience
- A recipe-based promise: Follow the system, and, with effort, anyone can get the rewards—that is, until the world changes (as it has), and the promises fall through (as they often do)
- Outcome-focused, labor-based productivity
- Empty, unengaging
The practice:
- Leadership, resilience, generosity, contribution, growth, connection
- Art: “Something that might not work, but is worth pursuing”
- “Outward focused, but not dependent on reassurance or applause”; focused on the journey for its own sake
- “Selflessness and ego in an endless dance”
Since there’s no external boss, we have to trust ourselves / our (unique, often hidden) selves.
Thoughts
I struggle a bit, at times, with the contrast that Godin lays out here. A part of me believes it, and all of me wants to believe it. But part of me recognizes that a good chunk of my job as a community college professor participates in this “industrial economy.” On the whole, I don’t like it, and I try to lay it bare in the classroom, to encourage a growth mindset, and to push students to think beyond what they currently assume their boundaries are. But many of them are still trying to find their place near the base of Maslow’s pyramid, and that industrial system—as uncertain and unfulfilling as it might be (though it’s not always!)—may be a life-changing improvement, at least at this point in their lives.
Said another way: “Something that might not work, but is worth pursuing” means differently for some of my students than it does for me, an old fart with a couple years to retirement.
Nonetheless, one of the reasons that I struggle with the Practice—one of the reasons I am so susceptible to Pressfield’s Resistance—is precisely that I was raised into this industrial economy. I pushed against it for awhile, especially in my younger, musical days, but (as I said) I’m an old fart with a couple years to retirement. I fell in line—not fully, I’d like to believe, but still…. I have patterns to break.
I’m also a bit challenged as I consider what “art” I’m even approaching here. Of course, Godin doesn’t mean art merely in the sense of “the Arts”—music, dance, writing, painting, ceramics, and so on. He means any generous act that would bring about positive change in the world. This might be in “the Arts” (which concept may have came out of that industrial economy, now that I think about it)—and for me it probably is, most likely writing and/or music. But I do wonder, sometimes, whether my desire to create is generous or selfish.
Perhaps that’s the point of his poetic phrase: “Selflessness and ego in an endless dance.”
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.