Produce something average

They once got two groups of people to make some pots out of clay. One group was given an hour to make as many pots as possible, while the other group used the hour to refine their one pot to near-perfection. The group who churned out pot after pot, by the end of the hour, consistently made better pots than those who laboured for an hour on their one creation.

It’s a lesson in quantity over quality, only you realise there is no trade-off: quantity produces quality. Even if most of what you make is poor, produce enough of it and you’ll find diamonds in the rough. Over time, your average will become excellent. And failing that, what you consider poor might be some people’s version of brilliance.

The principle I want to cultivate, and practice, is simply to produce average things. But at least do it consistently. Like writing a blog.

It extends to any discipline; whatever you wish to improve upon: creative pursuits like writing, music and art; fitness and sports; your job; practicing kindness; chatting to strangers; reading more; joining a society; or DIY at home. Do it all averagely but consistently.

I am not striving for average, only accepting that I will rarely produce or do something first time which brings me great delight, and that is fine.

It overlaps with a principle a politician once emphasised: cultivate a bias towards action. Though we might wish politicians acted less.

Highly successful people, who do much in this life, are not usually those with terrifying talent, but simply those who put themselves out there and continue to act, step forward, fail and move on, refine their approach, welcome the learning curve, and suffer scrutiny. That is talent, I suppose.

I recoil at the idea of just doing something rather than mulling over it carefully. I try to be careful with words and measured with actions, to a fault. Often it means I fear committing to somewhere or someone. I fear not finishing something, or regretting I ever started it. But this fear is part of that same mindset. A bias towards action tends to finish what it starts because it doesn’t get caught up in the navel-gazing that stupefies you to the world outside your head.

Producing lots of average things means addressing another fear, for myself at least. I fear the public eye which might expose me as a fraud. When there is nothing tangible on which I can be assessed I’m free to pretend, imagining anything myself. It is only when my self-aggrandising notions get dragged into reality and ignominiously shot, that I am free to test, refine and improve those elements of myself I once satisfied through solipsistic self-absorption.

Our world values excellence in ambiguity. The modern professional is prized for their ability to create, destroy and recreate themselves endlessly for the needs of the organisation. Bureaucrats and managers are doomed to serve arbitrary metrics for endless stakeholders through laborious consultations, town-halls and Teams meetings, without getting anything tangible done. Britain’s economy is so professionalised, and we are so alienated from the product of our labours, that Marx would concede if proletarian revolution had not come already, it never would. Humans are nothing if not adaptable.

When we lack objective, external metrics of what we’ve produced, we settle even more contentedly in ambiguity, while losing the outline of our humanity. That is best left as the topic for another blog, but I leave it as an exhortation to produce something average, or even far below average, for the sake of our dignity.

As Woody Allen once said, “I hate reality, but it is still the only place where I can get a decent steak.”