No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Extract from Leisure, W.H. Davis
A post by John Morley on LinkedIn earlier this week reminded me of Jonas and Jonathan Salk’s wonderful little book ‘A New Reality” and brought with it a host of other connections and smiles connecting to those who write of Cycles, Tides and Second Curves, and those who contribute for the sake of it, under creative commons licenses. Those who spend time standing, staring and sharing moments that evoke beauty for them.
Standing, staring, and sharing provide the inner fuel of the artisan, the moments that direct the motor neurons to write, paint, code, shape, and otherwise bring something small into being that carries their signature and leaves a mark without expectation of “outcome”.
They do it because they can.
And it leaves a challenge. Artisans grow faster than organisations owned by others. Their curiosity, craft, and inner drive/calling/vocation make them restless and uncomfortable with just making the status quo more profitable.
time and tide wait for no man
Geoffrey Chaucer
I expect it varies by the type of organisation. We can see the determination of those in teaching and healthcare who struggle with intransigent leadership yet commit to the work despite it. We can see it differently in life sciences startups and engineering. They share the satisfaction of creating products and services that improve people’s lives rather than just servicing consumption infrastructure. I suspect that the time interval in a bank before the process kills artisanal imagination is very short indeed.
There’s a point where Artisans need to move, or get sucked down into a swamp of performative measurement that cannot recognise the qualities of the artisan, yet alone appreciate it.
The “second curve”, of course, like tides and cycles, repeats to infinity. Maybe we should term it the emerging curve or anything else that takes your fancy and recognises its constancy rather than linearity.
Whatever we do, though, the time taken to stand and stare is not a luxury; it is the engine of progression.