constraints2: animating spirit – on bottlenecks, unfoldings, static vs dynamic again, the map is not the territory, the representation is not the thing but an artful representation can evoke feelings of the thing, even enrich our experience of the thing, the artist’s vocation.

i’m currently reading Eliyahu Goldratt’s The Goal (1984), which is basically about the theory of constraints, aka bottlenecks. I’m reading it in part with the intent of figuring out what the bottleneck is in my own creative process. I wasn’t quite sure that I was going to find an answer, until I encountered a character saying, I paraphrase, “the parts that are missing most of the time are likely where the bottleneck is.”

What a simple approach to troubleshooting a production process! Take a glance at the overview of the whole (which is full of ‘flashing lights’), and look for where the “PART MISSING” lights are flashing in particular. What are the parts missing most of the time in my writing? It’s not ideas, I have too many of those. It’s not words, sentences or paragraphs. I have abundances of all of those things– almost too much, to the point where it sometimes actually interferes with my ability to work. (This too is addressed in the book: “Left unchecked, work-in-process inventory (WIP) tends to accumulate all over the factory floor, cluttering up the space, causing accidents and errors, and generally interfering with all the activities that lead to high quality products.”)

Suppose I shipped an essay that I was really satisfied with, and it didn’t have a lot of words, didn’t have a lot of ideas. What about it could I possibly have been satisfied with? And the phrase that comes to me is animating spirit.

‘Animating spirit’ is the descriptive phrase that’s resonant for me, but it’s not a particularly novel idea. Some people call it “aliveness”. Christopher Alexander called it “The Quality Without A Name”, because any attempt to name the thing tends to then lead to a superficial interpretation of the thing, a static xerox snapshot of of the thing rather than the lively unfolding of the thing.

A representation of a thing can never be the real thing. But the magic of art is that sometimes we can use representations– symbols, words, sounds, colors– to evoke meaningful experiences in others. The magic of art is that we can sometimes transcend the bandwidth limitations of communication. I love how Borges put it:

“The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it we feel unhappy. A writer or any artist has the sometimes joyful duty to transform all that into symbols. These symbols could be colors, forms or sounds. For a poet, the symbols are sounds and also words, fables, stories, poetry. The work of a poet never ends. It has nothing to do with working hours. You are continuously receiving things from the external world. These must be transformed and eventually will be transformed. This revelation can appear anytime. A poet never rests. He’s always working even when he dreams…” ― Jorge Luis Borges (1976)

Yeah. That’s the vocation I’ve chosen. The Borges quote doesn’t actually fully capture the magic of it. For this I might have to turn to another one of my favorite speeches by Karl Paulnack, the director of the Boston Conservatory. The speech is worth reading in its entirety…

Or perhaps you could say it chose me. You could say that I haven’t yet done anything of worth or significance, and I wouldn’t disagree. Many great artists– Hokusai, Akira Kurosawa, etc – have said that most of what they did until they were in their 60s or 70s wasn’t of note, that it was all sketches and experimentation and they didn’t even begin to understand what they were doing until they had done so much of it. I’m only 34, but I feel my little share of that. I’ve written millions of words and feel like I’m barely beginning to understand them. Words have a rhythm to them. Every word has a history. Words interface with each other to create new effects, just like paints or sounds do. And yet, despite all the their elaborate and eccentric intricacies, words are not the point. It’s what you do with them that matter.

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I was telling a friend recently about my approach to giving talks, which feels like cheating but works really well for me almost every time. I believe that most conferences and similar events are more about sharing vibes than transmitting detailed information. This is truer than ever since we can share blogposts, slides, youtube videos and so on easily to everyone for free.

In the age of high-fidelity photographs, the painter is freed to worry less about photorealism, and can focus on capturing the essence of what they’re painting.

And yet, lots of people continue to give recitals of overly-prepared, overly rehearsed speeches. It often seems to me like audiences politely tolerates these speeches, and cordially laughs or claps at the appropriate moments.

Now, I do make an effort to prepare for my talks. I like to ad-lib on camera, record the video, and then play it back, paying attention to what felt resonant and what didn’t. Maybe this section isn’t relevant.

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I’ve been reading more Goldratt and it’s becoming clearer to me again…

I’m going to get a little nerdy and meta here, and divide myself up into both the creator and the client. I am my own #1 client. And I’m not a very good client. I’m both the product designer and the end user. And I have been vague and handwavey about what I want, as a user. I want everything. But what do I need? What will actually satisfy me?

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I abandoned this post about a month ago and now i’m looking at it again and wondering if I can get some animating spirit out of it, if i can add and remove elements to make it more artful in its incompleteness.

The question that needs asking is, WHAT PRODUCES ANIMATING SPIRIT? (2025jan27) I THINK THE ANSWER IS FEELING. HOW ARE YOU FEELING? THERE’S THINGS LIKE WHOLENESS AND CENTERS, HIERARCHIES, REPETITION, SYMMETRIES, CONTRASTS, ROUGHNESS, TEXTURES… BUT ALL OF THOSE ARE LIKE… ELEMENTS OF STYLE IN LANGUAGE. IT CAN BE INTERESTING TO STUDY THEM, BUT THE REAL JUICE IS IN THE FEELING THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING TO SHOW IT.

EARLIER TODAY I NOTICED THAT I FOUND MYSELF WRITING SOMETHING LIKE A GIFTED KID TWEET. AND I HAVE BEEN AVOIDING MAKING GIFTED KID CONTENT BECAUSE IT’S SO PASSE. BUT THERE ARE ALSO FEELINGS THAT I HAVE AT THE HEART OF MY PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GIFTEDNESS THAT I THINK ARE WORTH EXPLORING. THE TECHNICAL CHALLENGE FOR ME AS A WRITER IS TO FIND THINGS TO DESCRIBE AND TALK ABOUT THAT KEEP THINGS COMPELLING. I WROTE A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT IT’S LIKE BEING A PARENT AND SO MANY PEOPLE RESONATED WITH IT. AND YET I FIND MYSELF BEING RATHER DISMISSIVE OF IT, LIKE YEAH YEAH IT’S PARENTING STUFF, WHATEVER, THAT’S EASY TO MAKE PEOPLE FEEL. I’M TIRED OF DOING EASY STUFF. BUT I’M SCARED OF DOING HARD STUFF. I NEED TO FIND THINGS THAT ARE SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN. WE ARE ONCE AGAIN IN MIHALY C’S TERRITORY RE: FLOW. HOW CAN I EXPERIENCE FLOW IN WRITING? WELL I’M EXPERIENCING IT RIGHT NOW. WHY AM I WRITING IN ALL CAPS? BECAUSE IT’S HELPING ME NOT TAKE MYSELF TOO SERIOUSLY IN A SENSE. “OH VISA, DIDN’T YOU WRITE AN ESSAY TITLED ‘ARE YOU SERIOUS’? YES I DID, AND I STAND BY ALL OF IT, AND IN THAT ESSAY ITSELF I TALKED ABOUT RUINOUS SOLEMNITY, OKAY? OKAY.

I’M FRUSTRATED WITH MY OWN BANDWIDTH AS A HUMAN BEING. I’M FRUSTRATED THAT I GET TIRED AND SLEEPY AND RUN OUT OF ENERGY. I’M FRUSTRATED THAT I GET INTERRUPTED BY MY FAMILY, AND THEN I FEEL GUILTY FOR FEELING THAT FRUSTRATION BECAUSE I LOVE THEM AND I WANT TO BE PRESENT FOR THEM, TO BE A GREAT HUSBAND AND FATHER. BUT I ALSO WANT TO DO GOOD WORK AS DEFINED BY MY OWN CREATIVE PROCESS. HOW DO I BALANCE THE TWO?

LET’S RETURN TO THE BANDWIDTH ISSUE. WHY IS IT A PROBLEM THAT I GET TIRED AND SLEEPY AND RUN OUT OF ENERGY? IT’S BECAUSE THAT MEANS I CAN’T WORK ON BIG CHALLENGING PROBLEMS FOR EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME. BUT DOES THAT MEAN BIG CHALLENGING PROBLEMS CAN’T BE ADDRESSED IF YOU DON’T HAVE EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME? I BELIEVE THERE MUST BE A SOLUTION TO THIS PUZZLE. IT HAS TO DO WITH SOMETHING ‘PROJECT MANAGEMENT’ FLAVORED. I HAVE TO DESIGN A WAY TO DO A BLOCK OF WORK IN 10-15 MINUTES, LIKE PLAYING A GAME OF CHESS. AND I GUESS I SHALL SLEEP ON THAT THOUGHT.