We shouldn’t need to be in a specific place to tell a story (whether set there or inspired by it). Indeed, storytelling is a wondrous form of escapism: from the constraining bedroom of our adolescence, we could be on a pilgrimage to a distant star or fighting trolls in a fantastical dungeon.

Yet, it is undeniable that some places are naturally conducive to stories. The same goes for people. The creative must strive to find a balance between seeking out such locations and individuals, absorbing the inspiration they generously offer, and then retreat and isolate, perhaps when the creative least desires to do so, to wherever they may inhabit and create.

The creative process isn’t straightforward. It’s partly why it continues to inspire us to keep creating.

Inspiring places, people, and the creative mind

Businesses go to great lengths to claim they make data-based decisions. Yet, what is the alternative? Sadly, I’ve seen businesses base new policies and offerings on a peculiar mixture of gut, nostalgia and ideology. However, whenever a new, fact-based approach was taken, the flaws became immediately evident: entire programmes could be altered based on customer feedback; except only 0.2% of customers would leave any, which meant any change requested by 10% of them would account for a couple of dozen people out of many thousands.

Data-driven decisions are only as good as the data that drives them—and those who make them.

Data-driven duds

Once a narrative is set about a topic or person, it is hard to modify it. If one comes from a minority background, one will have experienced this in many prosaic interactions: the harmless stereotype might not offend, but it often boxes the individual in an unfair and inaccurate place.

We all do it. Generalisations are the tools that we use to navigate the world. Yet, we should learn to detect them and refuse to use them so much. Nobody deserves them.

Narrative boxes

Describing how a soldier ties the strap of his rifle loose enough that it can be grabbed quickly and pointed at a threat, but not so slack that it would bang against his back while marching, is an example of hyper-realism that puts the reader right in the scene. If the author were to do that for every subsequent paragraph in the upcoming four hundred pages, few readers would put up with the tedium of such verbosity.

Some will rush to write a rule about not including unnecessary details (after all, some renowned authors have posited that no adverbs should be used in literature!). Yet, breaking that rule makes the writing better. It’s the issue with rules: breaking them is often far more effective than following them to the letter.

Rules are not as important as the reason they exist. When one understands not the what but the why, one is free to do as one pleases.

Broken rules

Throughout history, the rebel has often become the tyrant. Power changes hands, but power doesn’t change.

Indeed, power can corrupt the best of us. Since we cannot change it, we can only divide it, diminish it, lessen it. We must atomise it so that many people hold many bits of it.

Naturally, one must not fall into the trap of thinking that such a feat would tackle the problem forever. It is the nature of power to concentrate itself, moulding human minds, dictating human actions, so that it can become whole again in the hands of the tyrant. Our job, then, must be to break it up as much and as often as we can.

The job will never be done. It will always need doing.

Atomised power

When designing a software application, one learns to think of all the ways it can break. While the fledgling developer focuses all effort on making something work, the seasoned programmer is busy considering all the scenarios in which it won’t.

Optimism and pessimism have little to do with it. Both are realists. In fact, one has more experience than the other. We can (and probably should) be optimistic about an idea and its execution. However, no pessimism should be spared when devising the strategy. We need to anticipate everything that could go wrong so that we can devise tactics adequate for each occasion.

Pessimistic strategists enable optimistic tacticians.

Martian Thoughts

Inspiring places, people, and the creative mind

Data-driven duds

Narrative boxes

Broken rules

Atomised power

Pessimistic strategists, optimistic tacticians