Productivity
Productivity
I am perplexed by my own productivity. I don’t understand it. It seems like a bottomless well. As a psychologist, I’d like to have a theory about it. It’s something of a burden, truth be told, though not an annoyance. It seems out of my control. I wish I could bottle and sell it (I would make a million). The best I can say is that it is a combination of life-long persistence and a certain lightness of being (whatever that means). I observe that it is accompanied by other sorts of productivity, if that is the word; it isn’t just philosophy and matters of the intellect. My impression (corroborated by others) is that my tennis game improves whenever I step on the court—not by a lot, but perceptibly. This comes from simple repetition but also from an openness to trying new techniques and close observation of other players (there is no magic potion or “inspiration”). It’s not an accident. I find the same thing with my singing and guitar-playing: a steady, predictable improvement—though always surprising. Even my drumming, which I’ve been doing for 62 years. Knife throwing too. It feels like my brain and body are willing to keep developing. No doubt this will grind to a sickening halt one day—maybe next week, who knows? But not yet; not yet. My memory is not as good as it was, and the same for my hearing (vision is okay except for reading). I’m planning an athletic romance in the near future, and intellectual romances are still on the cards. Perhaps that’s what it is: different kinds of romance.
I think it could be the breadth of your interests, even in philosophy – you are not stuck in a single field within that are you?
So first off, there is simply more to explore, discover and think about than if you had chosen a very narrow lane to travel. When you temporarily exhaust one topic, you can go and explore another without having to endure writer’s (or philosopher’s) block.
Secondly but, I think ,more importantly – it’s our old friend the neural pathway. I could imagine that your tennis, drumming, knife throwing etc neural pathways are opening up connectivity in your brain (as you have written about). Each one of those interests and especially your philosophical thought is able to take advantage of each other’s pathways to some degree. Thus each one is growing in a sort of exponential chain reaction, feedback loop, critical mass, emergence type thing. You have built and are still building an enormous infrastructure in your grey matter – your brain is still feeling needed.
I always remember reading about a statistic that probably something like the majority of patents at ICI came from people who didn’t have a chemicals background, but who had come into the company from other walks of life. I feel breadth of input is important for creativity.
So I think it is your openness to a broad range of activities and thoughts that’s fuelling the productivity, but where does the openness come from? Is it chicken and egg? Is there some reward system going on here? The productivity is certainly a reward in itself.
Also, as you said “persistence”. All of these things are only possible if you persist, if you are not easily discouraged by initial failure, because it’s not like you just skim the surface of those interests is it? You like to go deeper into them too, to aim for excellence.
They also have to be fought for, the ego puffs up and then has to take a total beating and so resilience must play a part too.
These are perceptive points. I do think my breadth is crucial: I just do so many different things. I also agree that the brain is part of the story: I think developing my left hand has helped my philosophical brain, by a kind of neural alchemy. As an example, yesterday I learned to sing the song “I think we’re alone now” by Tommy James and the Shandells: far removed from my intellectual interests, but neurally challenging. Building the brain’s infrastructure, as you say. I also played table tennis yesterday for two hours with a Cuban chef after an hour of tennis–pretty brain stimulating.
You are definitely in a productivity sweet spot, it boosts self belief/positivity and that in turn boosts productivity in a very non-vicious circle of a feedback loop.
It occurs to me that I was being a bit mechanical using neural pathways for my example, there are also (presumably) higher order functions going on such as tokens or concepts that may be punning from one field into another.
Also, hitting a ball over a net, throwing knives, drumming etc all obviously require precision, not just as a skill, but as the overall goal. A mirror or manifestation of the extreme precision required in wrangling the amorphous jelly-cloud of existence – armed with only language and logic. I imagine that that precision yields new results and insights, boosting productivity yet again.
Psychologists use the notion of transfer of training–one skill enhancing another. Pole vaulting enhancing metaphysics. Precision is of the essence, as is punning.