Uncovering ideas - Lightning Rods, Storm Clouds and Powerful Connections
Rethinking how change happens
We often see innovators and leaders as incredible pioneers who changed the world or “Put a dent in the Universe”.
I would argue differently.
Often, they can be considered release valves for an idea that was going to happen anyway.
Confucius says…
For example, let’s look at the curious case of Confucius (551-479 BCE).
He was alive at the same time as the Buddha (563-480 BCE).
Also, Socrates popped up right after them both (470-399 BCE).
It seems strange that the fathers of Stoicism, Buddhism and Confucianism were all alive at such similar times!
They produced relatively similar movements that focussed on morality, harmony, righteousness and sincerity.
None of these movements were about a god but instead taught the art of liberating oneself from unchecked emotions and reactivity and pursuing a path of wisdom.
(Buddhism has some supernatural elements like Karma and rebirth but it does not teach any worshipping of a god)
Teacher vs Curriculum
As individual teachers, Confucius et al.. had incredible insights and brilliant lessons.
It’s easy to overlook that they taught a curriculum that wanted to be heard at that moment in time.
A new product that is too early or too late will fall completely flat.
They timed the market perfectly.
There was an underlying craving to be satisfied.
Rather than thinking of these men as the incredible individuals who forged a path forward in morality and created these belief sects.
We could think of the human populations of that time period as having these beliefs already within them. They were seeking someone (or an idea of someone) to follow.
Much in the same way that people click on an article with a title that confirms their beliefs.
People flocked to follow these leaders because they already believed what the teacher was saying.
Socrates, Buddha and Confucius may not have garnered complete public acceptance in their day, but they each accrued their own set of loyal disciples.
These disciples went forth and spread their message over the generations to an increasingly eager audience.
Leader vs Faith
You could say much the same thing about Jesus or Mohamed.
They didn’t create these giant religions as such.
It could be more accurate to say they dismantled the floodgates for monotheistic religion to flow forth.
Something was shifting in the world.
Different civilisations were more in touch with each other
It became increasingly obvious that the Sun God, War God and Bread God in the valley next door were possibly just as bananas as the Sun God, War God and Bread God in your valley.
People needed a more unifying theory that began where the science of the day ended.
Faith was changing.
It was not the leader who changed the faith.
It was the changing faith that required a leader.
Lightning Rods
When a storm cloud brews the potential electric energy builds and builds and builds.
It is going to strike the ground somewhere regardless, but a tree, building or lightning rod will make the process easier for the energy to flow.
When a group of people have an underlying belief or need.
It is these singular individuals or events that provide the lightning rod.
Becoming an impactful person is the art of becoming a lightning rod.
Violence Strikes
In the UK there has been a brewing storm cloud of far-right beliefs. When three children were killed in a stabbing attack on 29th July. In the far-right circles, this was falsely claimed to be done by a Muslim asylum-seeker.
(There are suggestions that Russia helped poke the storm cloud with some added disinformation campaigning - I might just be clicking on links I’m set up to believe…)
In different cities, telegram groups and far-right personalities served as lightning rods to channel the growing Islamophobic, racist and anti-immigration believers.
It funnelled them into civil unrest and riots.
For a whole week, England suffered racist attacks, arson and looting across the country.
These riots did not create racism…
Racism already existed.
It has been growing subtly through increased divisive content online and the ever-growing silos of content people can exist in.
The riots merely withdrew the curtain to reveal the racist groups who were all within the UK the week before.
Whose Idea Is It Anyway?
When Michelangelo was asked how he carved the statue of David, he answered:
"It's simple. I just remove everything that is NOT David."
This is known as “Addition through Subtraction”.
Often, in our quest to unlock inner greatness, we begin by looking in all the wrong places.
Many of the greatest songwriters and authors don’t feel they necessarily wrote some of their pieces of work.
Many say it was a process of uncovering it, that it was always there and needed to be let out.
Often when I am noodling on the guitar I find an interesting chord.
There is something about it that inspires me to write something else that sounds nice together with that first chord.
The combinations I come up with feel like they were the only chords that ever sounded right. By stumbling onto a chord you essentially unravel the whole song that had to be the way it was.
Like completing a jigsaw and placing the pieces sequentially after the first corner piece is laid.
It’s the same with writing out this idea here.
I started with a thought about inverting the idea of leaders to instead be revealers and have simply been placing pieces in the puzzle.
Join the dots
In join the dots we think of a simple task to draw the lines between the dots to make a picture.
The true essence of all ideas is the simple art of drawing lines between some dots.
Notes and words that belong together in a song or concepts that belong together in a blog or book.
They are all a bunch of dots joined together at different levels of intricacy.
The more clever an idea the less obvious it is that the dots belong together until the connection is made for us.
I never thought of inventors, artists or leaders as lightning rods before…
But the connection was always waiting to be made.
Science is the most obvious and pure form of this.
Isaac Newton did not invent Gravity, any more than Einstein invented Light, or Darwin invented Evolution.
They were the first people to understand these forces that existed and connect dots that no one had been able to before.
All inventors, hackers and hustlers are in the business of connecting dots.
A scientist does not create truth any more than a business creates an opportunity.
Jeff Bezos did not invent the human desire for fast delivery of any item you want online with an easy return process.
Reid Hastings did not invent the human desire to watch films or TV shows on demand from your seat without waiting for it to be on TV or physically renting it from a store.
The founders of Amazon and Netflix were there at the right time to satisfy the need.
10 years earlier would have been too early. 10 years later would have been too late.
You could say the same thing about Hitler or Haribo.
Piece by Piece
You do not complete a puzzle all in one move.
It happens over time piece by piece.
There is another curious similarity between Confucius, The Buddha, Socrates, as well as both Jesus and Mohammed.
None of them wrote any of their own words down.
They sparked an idea with their words that we’ll never truly know the precise original version of.
Over the decades and centuries, different recordings of their lessons were created and written down and passed along.
Confucius’s teachings have been interpreted and reinterpreted, elaborated upon and expanded, again and again by countless thinkers, writers and emperors. Some of whom imported fashionable ideas an practices from competing doctrines and faiths…
The Confucius of modern discourse is not the Confucius of the classical age; nor is he even the Confucius of a hundred years ago.
Michael Shuman - Confucius and the World he Created
“Every age has its own Confucius, and in each age, there are several different kinds of Confucius”
“The figure of Confucius continually changes according to whatever people of each age think or say about him. But most people are not aware of this, and they ultimately don’t understand what the real face of Confucius is”
Gu Jiegang - Chinese historian and folklorist
The thing with timeless characters is the mythology around them can morph and adapt to match the demands of each era.
They can become a permanent lightning rod for slight shifts in ideas.
The first piece of the puzzle they laid down with their lives, but the rest of the puzzle was put in place by the generations of followers that came after them.
Embrace Ideas
So if leaders are revealers and we are all simply playing intricate games of joining the dots.
Where does that leave us with completing the puzzle of what to do with our lives?
It probably doesn’t matter.
There is however an important difference between forging something and revealing something.
You can’t turn rocks into Gold with alchemy but you can hack a bunch of rocks to pieces to find the gold within.
Charlie Munger was a huge advocate of the inversion principle and the insights revealed by using the opposite approach to what is first obvious to us.
When we think of forging a career, building a business or crafting a masterpiece it’s easy to assume we are the creator.
I wonder if you would perhaps have a different approach if you considered yourself a revealer.
As Carl Jung said:
“People don’t have ideas
Ideas have people”
So by all means, go forth - channel ideas.
There are forces and needs waiting to be released, you could be the lightning rod.
Why the hell not?!
Remember not to fool yourself into thinking you are forging something when most likely you are uncovering it.
Less creating and more connecting.
