bring it up to an art
Normal chizang-blog readers beware — I’m about to try something new for a little while. Optimism rather than cynicism. Yeah, weird, and I can’t explain exactly why, but bear with me. Maybe it’ll pass, like gas. Anyhow…
Today, as I was preparing for chiangsgiving 2007 (a raging success btw; the turkey was delish), I thought to myself, “you know, self, I’ve got this prep down to a science”. And immediately, weirdo-optimistic-me rejected that thought, as it was followed by, “no, I’ve brought this up to an art”.
A bit of conceit, perhaps, but I think the general concept is powerful, so even if I’m not as good as I think [almost certainly the case --ed.], it’s worth exploring.
My interest here is in the immediate connotation of words and phrases in our vernacular, and how that connotation results in both conscious and subconscious behaviors and reactions. In other words, let me be a little loose with definitions and if you want to argue with me, clearcut the entire forest rather than harvesting a few select trees.
In any case, the phrase “down to a science” is a well known aphorism that connotes a sense of mastery in a given subject. When I hear this phrase, I get the cold, sterile image of a researcher in a lab, repeating an experiment over and over until the results are verifiable and (more importantly) reproducible. Certainly, one might think implying mastery of a subject using this image and phrase is appropriate.
The problem is, this phrase is self-limiting. It implies that once you’ve got the procedure memorized, internalized, perfected — you’re done and there’s nothing else to do. The means to achieve your end has been documented and demonstrated to be repeatable, and you (or anyone else) can redo it any time you wish. You’ve got it down to a science.
Alas, where’s the provision to explore outside the boundaries of the established process? By definition, there isn’t any. Rapping, riffing, improv, stream of consciousness, isn’t allowed in science. If you want to change something, you do it one variable at a time, document the change, lather-rinse-repeat. Cold. Sterile. Limiting.
My alternative? Bring it up to an art. See how much better that sounds? Even the slight adjustment of the preposition changes the entire character of the connotation. Bringing something up is always better than bringing something down, right?
But what do I mean by that, really? Bring it up to an art? Let me try this first cut at it, and see how it goes. My contention is that getting it down to a science shouldn’t imply mastery. Rather, it should connote competence — no more, no less. Journeyman skill, if you will.
Bringing it up to an art is what ought to imply mastery. It means you can change as many variables as you want and your intuition gives you an instant idea of the final result. It means your internalization of the theory and every implication of every step of the implementation is so complete that you can perform the sludgery-drudgery repeated science experiments — in your head — in parallel — on the fly — and prune out the branches that result in dead ends so your only choices are any one of the particular perfect results that you happen to fancy at the moment. Whatever you’re doing comes without effort, laden with grace, and results in beauty.
Science is the base competency; art ought be sought after.
Thus, the subtle evilness of aphorisms — we’re conditioned to think they mean a certain thing, while in parallel, the words upon which they’re built have their own baggage — and the end result is a feeling in your gut that is exactly the sum of the components.
And if that’s the case, then I challenge you to reject a phrase like “getting it down to a science” that locks you in to mediocrity. Reject the limiting and low-achieving mindset it immediately connotes. Instead, take whatever you’re doing and bring it up to an art.
[This post brought to you by a Seth Godin wannabe. Seth brings powerful ideas up to an art; I'm still working on getting it down to a science.]
