On language games, and being inspired by competition
Hey guys,
From last week’s first fingers of fog sliding under the Golden Gate Bridge, we this week saw the whole seasonal duvet of summer fog pull in tight over the Bay.
We lurk in the murk for a few months now, all day many days, and most mornings at least.
Like this…
Don’t come in the summer for a warm vacation and complain, because our summer fog is famous!
I’ll send you down to Fisherman’s Wharf to be extorted by a sweatshirt seller famous for his cheap quality I love San Francisco hoody at some lofty price for those wafting in from all over the world with just light summer clothes packed.
And remind that while we’re blanketed in the cool Pacific air from the west, we’re surrounded by heat just half an hour’s drive north, south or east. You can drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and watch the air temperature leap by 5 -10 degrees, it’s extraodinary.
Last week, I shared the surprise of frank, hot, words wandering out of my mouth in the rustic Dolphin Club sauna, in response to the question “…and so what now?”.
This week I noticed how I’m weaving different words, blowing slightly different smoke rings, in four different conversations where the question came up.
Each of the four meetings was with people that I’d be very game to work with, in my old direction of travel. Two of them are like godparents in San Francisco in the way (slightly older) they’ve looked out for me since moving here, both while working with them and after.
All of the four meetings related to roles in which I would go find the money for investments, in areas from clean energy to agriculture, like I’ve done in the past. And all were very persuasive, of course.
In two of the meetings, I fudged the answer, condensing a fog of words around possibilities in rough lineage to what I used to do, not yet wanting to say no.
In the two others, I expressly hedged, to keep the door open. And I did this even though not truly saying what I feel always make me shrink inside in some way. Doesn’t it for all of us?
“Hedge-fudge” I thought in my head, for this way of being.
“Hedge-fudge”…
Does this happen to you, to? Ever? Even in the tiniest way?
Different narratives for different people?
Some narratives in which the story makes you naturally stand a half-inch taller, as you share it.
And others that create facial micro-expressions that leave the little lines in our face twitching that we’re not really telling the deepest truth.
But it’s important to watch, and to observe what our different bundles of words all mean, as they unbundle different pictures of what we’re saying for different people.
It’s a law of nature that as long as a conversation involves two people, it’s not what we say, it’s what the other person hears.
That’s the game of language, right?
In our heads, its how we voice out (internally) our perception of the world. And, in a conversation, it’s how we position in it for a relationship, and something we want or don’t want..
My reading over the last month or so has stumbled into all kinds of angles on how we use language, as relates to business and relationships and performance.
It reminded me of days at Edinburgh where I was intrigued by friends studying linguistics (and slightly intimidated). It seemed so fascinating, but so theoretical.
And then over the years you realize that our language is our code, and our words and how we use them state who and how we are in the world.
Really, we’re leading others in a certain dance, and we’re leading ourselves too in what comes out of our mouth. We’re using this code all day long, all life long, to try and paint clearer pictures.
So watch carefully for hedge-fudge, and what each of our oily words makes us feel…
God Only Knows…
People can obsess with the competition, with great results. But sometimes very miserably so, in the obsessing.
Instinctively, I’ve always thought that it’s more fun to be inspired by whoever or whatever you’re up against, and to run your own race in that frame, rather than to be obsessed with the competition.
So, on a long beautiful drive across the central volcanic plateau of New Zealand, I loved hearing the story of the creative competition that fueled The Beatles and the The Beach Boys to their greatest recordings, within a few years of each other back in the 1960s.
Rick Rubin, the eclectic and legendary music producer, shares this story of escalating inspiration in ‘The Creative Act’, a compilation of 78 essays on creativity. (The Audible listening book is a gem in being narrated by his own voice).
Back in 1965, as both bands were becoming more well known, the Beatles were breaking into the US and the global stage.
Beach Boys’ lead Brian Wilson found himself immensely moved by the 1965 Beatles album Rubber Soul. He commented:
“If ever I do anything in my life, I’m going to make that good an album”, and later then, “I was so happy to hear it that I went and started writing God Only Knows”.
And God Only Knows was released on The Beach Boys cornerstone Pet Sounds album in 1966.
Then, on first hearing that song, The Beatles’ Paul McCartney was reportedly reduced to tears. And McCartney proclaimed God Only Knows as the best song ever written.
Fueled by the good vibrations of inspiration, the Beatles started to play the record over and over and over again while writing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rather than an uptight ‘battle of beating’, The Beatles infused themselves with the voicings and harmonies that defined Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.
George Martin, the Beatles’ producer said
“Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper would never have happened.“
And as Rubin concludes…
“this creative back-and-forth wasn’t based on commercial competition, it was based on mutual love”
Through these albums, so many ears have been enriched in their beautiful creativity and musical innovation.
The opening chords of God Only Knows had such an impact on me that they’ll immediately send a shiver down my spine and a glaze of a tear in my eyes.
And to share a funny anecdote, in an instant I get taken back to a sepia-warm memory, sitting in the front seat of our Volvo speeding down a motorway with Dad at the wheel and Pete in the back.
It was a warm August morning, and we were just hours off the plane after a long haul flight back from California. The holiday time included a camping trip that I’ll never forget (during which Pete and I fell in love with bodyboarding in the ocean).
Anyway, we jumped straight into the car to drive to a dry-slope skiing competition in Hemel Hempstead. (It’s amazing to think back of the dedication and drive that Mum and Dad had to get us to all kinds of things that are bedrocks of our lives and spirits today :))
And, Dad threw on the Best of The Beach Boys album he’d bought during the trip.
The beauty of God Only Knows was too much for him too, it seems, and Dad started relaxedly slipping into a poor timely nap at the wheel of our Volvo station wagon…jet-lagged heavy eyes over relaxing into the harmonies…
As the story goes, Dad snapped out of it when a police car pulled up alongside and started yelling at him.
Anyway, a wonderful insight from Rick Rubin, to be inspired by your competition as just one more way to hit your finest wavelengths.
Sources…
– The Creative Act, Rick Rubin
– Paul McCartney spoke about Pet Sounds, The Paul McCartney Project
Well said…
“Great language has exactly the same properties as great music. It has rhythm, it has pitch, it has tone, it has accents.”
-Aaron Sorkin
