PHOTO BY: CARLOS BOHORQUEZ NASSAR
“In cultures like India or in previous times, people had traditions of apprenticeship. They’d want to be a blacksmith, so they’d spend 12 years at the feet of a master. By the time they were done, they became a master themselves. That’s how people learned things in the old days, they would fully master them.”
The above statement was made by Buddhist Lama Christie McNally during an interview with GOOD. The interview discussed the practice of a meditation retreat that consists of 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days of complete silence, no speaking, and no contact with the outside world. Some Buddhist students embark on this retreat in order to truly master the art of meditation.
This lead me to thinking about questions of true artistry. Is this a tradition we are losing in modern times? Are we no longer artisans of anything? Have we lost the ability to focus on and master one thing? Is this a positive or a negative? In the interview, McNally goes on to discuss the negative effects. But in contrast, I wonder if maybe we’ve progressed into something bigger.
Jack of all Trades, Master of None
“In this culture, we dabble and we educate our children to be dabblers. That’s what I did in college. I’d take this psychology class or that philosophy class, but there was no emphasis on going to your full potential. There’s so much potential in everybody, but nobody is living up to it.”
I agree that modern education consists of learning a little about a lot of things. However this should not discount that we do in fact learn something. We study the basics, but then we are pushed to innovate on our own. I had an Anthropology professor, Kathleen Young, who challenged me to “think about the way we think.” This one lesson applied to everything else I learned in college and is still influential in my life. Furthermore, I continue to reflect back on anthropological, mathematical and scientific ideas from college when tackling design problems.
Maybe I didn’t master any single discipline in my education, but I learned how to learn, how to connect contrasting disciplines and how to organize my thoughts into new ideas.
The Ability to Focus
“But in this society, we are anti-concentration: we surf the web all the time and our minds are going from this object to that object in a nanosecond. There’s no tradition for just sitting down and keeping the mind on a single object. “
I agree with McNally here. Focus is something I continually struggle with, and I think is an even bigger problem in our society. Lack of focus detracts from every aspect of achieving artistry. We may not need to master one particular thing, but we certainly must be able to focus clearly to be successful. How can we improve focus in an era of extreme information overload and a rapidly increasing pace of life? It’s challenging, but developing focus should be an exercise we all practice on a daily level.
Mastering Design Thinking
Ideas of mastering artistry are fascinating to me because of my vast array of interests in different disciplines, and I strive for perfection in every one. Unfortunately, perfection is unlikely, but maybe there is something else to achieve by drawing connections, developing inter-disciplinary relationships and problem solving.
I am a designer, but I am far from reaching design mastery. I view design as encompassing elements of every discipline, but I cannot master everything. However, maybe design artistry can be achieved by mastering the way we think about design.
Holistic Perspectives
Fusion of disciplines allows for the most interesting and innovative results. The world is becoming continually more interconnected, and it cannot be denied that viewing from a single perspective is limiting. By taking on multiple viewpoints, we are able to develop a bigger and truer understanding.
In modern times, maybe we are becoming masters in the art of thinking.
