A couple of months ago I told you about Roberto Ostinelli, someone I consider exceptionally talented and I admire a lot. Follow this link to access some of Roberto's excellent photographs... I have stopped counting the number of fields in which he does very well: music, software engineering, business, singing, photography...
Which makes me think that quality may be more a matter of the way one approaches a field rather than the amount of tips and trick he or she knows about the field. Which, of course, is a challenge to the way talent is assessed and recruited in more established environments. I call this "the syndrome of the perfect green apple", or "why the average consumer will mostly buy unsavory apples that look perfect". I recently read a post on a friend's blog that deals with the issue of recruitment of IT professionals; it's worth taking a look at what David says and I know he is the type of guy who looks at substance rather than mere appearance. In many ways David and Roberto share values and ways of doing that are great to have in this world IMHO.
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ReplyDeleteHe noted that although normally you associate Quality with objects, feelings of Quality sometimes occur without any object at all. This is what led him at first to think that maybe Quality is all subjective. But subjective pleasure wasn't what he meant by Quality either. Quality decreases subjectivity. Quality takes you out of yourself, makes you aware of the world around you. Quality is opposed to subjectivity.
I don't know how much thought passed before he arrived at this, but eventually he saw that Quality couldn't be independently related with either the subject or the object but could be found only in the relationship of the two with each other. It is the point at which subject and object meet.
That sounded warm.
Quality is not a thing. It is an event.
Warmer.
It is the event at which the subject becomes aware of the object.
And because without objects there can be no subject...because the objects create the subject's awareness of himself...Quality is the event at which awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible.
Hot.
Now he knew it was coming.
This means Quality is not just the result of a collision between subject and object. The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of the Quality!
Now he had that whole damned evil dilemma by the throat. The dilemma all the time had this unseen vile presumption in it, for which there was no logical justification. that Quality was the effect of subjects and objects. It was not! He brought out his knife.
"The sun of quality," he wrote, "does not revolve around the subjects and objects of our existence. It does not just passively illuminate them. It is not subordinate to them in any way. It has created them. They are subordinate to it!
And at that point, when he wrote that, he knew he had reached some kind of culmination of thought he had been unconsciously striving for over a long period of time.
R. Pirsig.
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dear alex,
it occurred to me you might be sharing some very same intuitions with the author.
this is the most appealing definition i ever came to cross.
warm regards,
r.