Rob Symonds

An elegant answer to a personal question

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While studying web analytics, I was exposed to the work of Avinash Kaushik. His writing is entertaining and always worth the time spent reading it. He could write an article called “The Best Sandwich I Ever Ate” and you would be hooked from the first word, as well as smarter after reading it than before.

During a recent Q and A on Yabbly, somebody tossed him a rather personal question:

Question
What is the purpose of your existence? Do you believe in God?

To which he replied:

Answer
I love this poem by Walt Whitman, and I believe we are here to contribute our verse. It is what I worry about, it is what I solve for.

***

O Me! O Life!
BY WALT WHITMAN

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

I loved the fact that he didn’t dodge the question. He answered it honestly and concisely, but in a way that still lets him maintain his privacy.

Carlos Castaneda on Uncertainty

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When nothing is for sure we remain alert, perennially on our toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we know everything.

—Carlos Castaneda

Clayton Christensen on Hardship and Service

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Two thought-provoking quotes from Clayton Christensen.

From Forbes:

I’m an optimistic person. But for the first time in my life, with all my problems, I focused more and more on me–and it was depressing, literally. Sometimes I just wanted to quit trying to learn and speak and write again and just go into my basement and build furniture. I learned an important lesson from this. I learned that focusing on my own problems does not bring happiness. God didn’t say, “Okay. For those with problems it’s okay to focus on yourself. And for those who don’t have problems, I want you to focus on helping others.” Even in dire times God does not exempt me from his commandment to focus my life on others, because it transforms hardship to joy.

Another article ends with this powerful quote:

The person I decide to be has to be robust enough that it doesn’t matter what happens in my life… Life will happen to me. But I don’t want what happens in life to determine who Clay Christensen becomes.

The Accidental Millionaire – by Gary Fong

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You probably haven’t heard of Gary Fong.

Even though I’m an avid photographer, I hadn’t heard of him until a photographer buddy clued me in. He is known as an innovative wedding photographer, entrepreneur and writer. In The Accidental Millionaire, Fong tells us his life story so far, illustrating a personal philosophy that has lead to his wild success.

What I found so compelling is that his approach to life appears very much at odds with what we typically see when we read about success. In contrast to vision, goals, tasks and actions, Fong writes about a more Zen-flavored philosophy that is based on exploring things that interest him, creating space for insights to happen and then working his ass off once something catches. He admits he acts on hunches, sometimes decides by flipping a coin and understands the role luck has in success.

[Read more…] about The Accidental Millionaire – by Gary Fong

Jack White on Restriction and Creativity

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I have a fascination with The White Stripes. It’s amazing to me how much they can do with so little.

In this roughly two minute clip, Jack White talks about the things that foster their creativity.

There are two main takeaways here:

1. You don’t always wake up inspired and you don’t really need to. Get to work anyway. You still may come up with something good. I would add that inspiration often follows getting started anyway.

2. Create a box and then work within that box. Restrictions and constraints can foster creativity. Too many options and a lack of constraints can kill creativity. The White Stripes have chosen certain restrictions and constraints to continually force themselves to be creative.

Journey vs. Destination

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Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.

— Shakespeare

The other day I was watching a television series which, at the beginning of each episode, had a voiceover announce “Previously on…” before showing a string of clips to recap all the important plot points in the past few episodes.

If you just watched those clips at the start of each episode and skipped the episodes, you could still get the whole story arc and save a heap of time. [Read more…] about Journey vs. Destination