The people who like to tell you what you can’t and shouldn’t do tend to be the people that don’t do much, themselves
— Merlin Mann
Oh the Places You’ll Go
Dalton Caldwell, a writer who is a part of the Svbtle network, writes this interesting piece on greatness and its manifestation.
As I regularly read the book to my pre-lingual son, I began to take notice that it captured Truth about life. To be completely honest, during this difficult period, I got to the point where I had trouble reading the whole book to him without choking up. Sure, laugh if you want.
Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winningest winner of all. Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don’t. Because, sometimes, they won’t. I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you.
What is fascinating to me is that Great creation stories all sound surprisingly similar. Something along the lines of “yeah we went in the studio and put down some tracks, and they sounded pretty good, and we had to redo a couple of things, and then when put out the album.” Disappointing, right?
Except, it’s not. Because, as he points out, greatness is something that is a product of such drive and repetition, such refined precision and understanding, that it is often subconscious.
The main takeaway that I have been able to synthesize from all of this data is this: Greatness always comes from someone with a finely honed craft, a craft honed to the point of muscle memory. In baseball, you can’t be thinking about which hand goes where on the bat, and how wide your stance is, and where your feet are placed if you want to hit a fastball. All of those decisions have to be muscle memory, and you must have a clear head that is simply thinking about “showing up to play.”
Put more beautifully and succinctly:
You just need to have clear eyes, a full heart, and be ready to show up and play.
Well said.
