My imagination is too limited.
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Notes
The story of Kennedy Odede, a Kenyan who grew up in abject poverty but who nonethless started a nonprofit to help youth in the slum where he grew up. They started with a soccer team; they now provide medical clinics, clean water, public toilets, etc. in many poor areas in Kenya—”not because there was a series of assignments of a job to be filled, but because they could.”
He “grew up surrounded by insufficiency,” but focused externally rather than on his own urgency, agenda, or needs (as we often do). This led to sharing his idea for purifying water in the village, rather than hoarding it for profit. This improves life—sufficiency, well-being, joy—for the community.
“Our culture is like that village. Ideas shared are ideas that spread, and ideas that spread change the world.”
Thoughts
This is an example of a chapter that benefited from my reading the book so slowly. My initial response (well, after the nit-picky “what’s the 20 cents about?—I think he left some gaps in the story” response) was: “Hey, in 200+ chapters, some of them are bound to ‘miss’ me. This one will certainly resonate with some people, but I don’t see much that I can do with it.”
So if I’d just been reading, and just turned the page and went on to Chapter 40, that’s as far as I’d have gotten. But when I sat down to write that out, things didn’t fall into place quite so easily.
I realize how small my imagination is. I don’t really see myself as “changing the world”—or even changing my little part of it. I’m not sure if that’s laziness, selfishness, inadequacy, or what. It’s likely a good dose of “all the above.”
But one of the struggles I’ve had working through Seth’s book probably comes down to this: I’m pretty insular. If I think about the album, for example, or about the identity of “musician” more generally, I see it more or less as an individual thing. I don’t think there’s a problem with that if we’re just talking about the creation of the album (though the previous chapter did point out some drawbacks), but in a larger picture, I don’t really want to create the music just for myself. I want others to hear (and like!) it. At the same time, as I said, my imagination about that—about it getting out into the world, and especially having an impact—is almost nonexistent.
I’m not sure where to go from there. I’m obviously not going to overcome laziness, selfishness, inadequacy, etc. overnight (if I even wanted to—a self-reaffirming symptom of laziness and so on). But recognizing how limited my vision is… that’s a reasonable first step.
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.