The smaller thing that you will actually do is often worth more than the larger thing that you’ll only think of doing. At a first pass, this seems rather simple and obvious. But therein lies another lesson—the most powerful notions are often the ones that lack the complexity to be anything else.
As the saying goes, perfection is not achieved at the point at which nothing more can added. But at the point at which nothing more can be taken away. Perfection as it said, is all that remains.
But our conversation today is not concerned with the various ways in which perfection might be achieved—but rather to call into question the very role of perfection in our pursuit of what is more.
It would seem more often than not, that we are actually hindered by our desire for what is “best”, more times than we are carried forwards towards the very object of that desire.
But today’s discussion won’t resemble the rather tired platitude about perfection being the enemy of good, or parrot the same old advice about “just beginning” as an antidote to perfectionism.
Instead, I want to offer a more nuanced perspective on the nature of progress, in the face of ourselves and all that we imagine.
“In Theory”
Famous last words for many a project, venture, solution, or deceivingly simple task.
We all carry with us some intuition (whether we listen to it or not) that the world has a way of eluding our expectations of it—that things rarely go as planned, or otherwise behave as they “should.” We might even begin a thought with, “in a perfect world…” and go on to lay out our theory in detail.
But quite inconveniently, our theories have a way of never leaving the page, in some sense. It would seem that the true nature of the world is always more mysterious than our feeble attempts to quantify it.
And quite naturally, life becomes a delicate tension between what is great in theory, and what is great in practice. This will occupy the bulk of our discussion today.
Because there is something quite seductive about “theories” in the way that they present themselves. They offer a vastly simplified view of the world, and in doing so promise you the power to manipulate the world, to your choosing. By their very nature, they are engineered to self-validate their own existence. A good theory will enable you to do much more than you could otherwise do in its absence—to land a rocket on the moon…to build an atom-bomb…to send images across the internet.
Theories are tremendously powerful. But it’s just as well important to understand what makes them so powerful in the first place. The naive will assume that a theory is powerful in so far as it truly approximates reality—that the proof is in the pudding so to say—that if a theory allows you to do great things, then it must be “correct” or “right” about the world in some way.
But this is an illusion…and a tempting one at that.
Theories do not offer a deeper understanding of the world, but rather a way of masking everything else that can not be understood in the context of this theory. By hiding or abstracting away all the things you don’t know, you are simply left with the things that you do. This creates the rather powerful illusion that you know far more than you do. Like entering and winning a competition of one.
To better understand this, one might consider the act of driving a car: one does not drive a car as a result of being able to understand the inner-workings of internal combustion, or the complicated physics at play behind a rear-differential…but quite the contrary. The true complexity of a vehicle is hidden behind a mesmerizingly simple interface that is much easier to manipulate as a direct result of that.
You don’t need to know what’s really happening when you’re driving. You just need to know what happens when you press the gas and break pedal—how to make the car turn to the right, and so on.
And it must be this way. A car wouldn’t be very useful if it required a tremendously deep understanding of various integrated sciences in order to accomplish a simple task.
And there is the golden goose: a theory is meant to be useful. Not to reveal a deeper understanding—but to conceal an even deeper un-understanding.
In Practice
But how does this apply to our initial thought, that the smallest thing you will actually do is often better than the largest thing that you won’t…?
It comes from a recognition that a theory (like all tools) requires the proper wisdom and context within which to be used effectively to some greater end.
A very well designed hammer is still rather useless in the hands of the unskilled carpenter. But perhaps equally as important, the hammer doesn’t quite care what it is being used to build, so to say. A nail is a nail, whether a part of a beautiful home, or a directionless, worthless project. The ability to discern which nails are worth hammering—that falls within the domain of the carpenter.
And this ability to discern—to place decisions (and the right decisions) within their context and interpret the whole of the situation, against a backdrop of relevant values—might be more important than the outcome of the sole-decision being made.
This maturation in understanding is what allows us to go from the infinite pursuit of power, to the gentle cultivation of wisdom that allows for that power to be useful.
Without this wisdom, and a dedicated means of nurturing it, our theories lose their “touch” with reality, and don’t end up being powerful in a way that is also relevant to any meaningful goal in question. This is a hallmark of the early to middle lives of so many creatives and entrepreneurs: an overly avid fixation on “tools” that might further one’s endeavors, coupled with a supreme lack of actually using what tools one already has in the first place.
This is the musical artist who is convinced that they need a “better” microphone before they can start making music.
This is the entrepreneur who thinks he needs to set up a payment processor before he can start doing business.
This is a way of thinking that is always looking to expand one’s capabilities—an obsession with tools and a limited desire to truly bring those tools to bear in a meaningful way.
The result is a kind of illusion wherein one believes he is constantly making progress towards his goals, but in reality he is only accumulating more tools, resources, and knowledge that will only marginally enhance this progress.
As a rather interesting side note, I have noticed that the less experience someone has had using actual (physical) tools, the greater degree of faith and emphasis they put on them entirely. Many of the people who think that AI will replace everything (and effectively make humanity useless) are the same people who have never worked on a car, or built something with their hands.
And as anyone who has personally dealt with either of those things will know: tools do not enable you to do anything beyond what your skill to use them will allow.
And this says nothing of the fact that tools (even good tools) don’t do anything to give you more agency if you don’t already have it yourself. Think of the number of people who have full kitchens and pantries in their homes and still find themselves ordering food for dinner each week. Or the number of people willing to pay a plumber to fix a problem using the same tools one could purchase themselves at a hardware store.
For years now, our “capabilities” have been increasing well beyond that of even the extraordinarly wealthy of the past. But very few people truly “take advantage” of all that is available to us in this day and age, in the way that our forefathers might if they had the same opportunities.
In effect, the capabilities themselves (and especially at this point in history) are very rarely the true bottleneck on progress towards one’s goals. It is more likely the case that one has the tools—all the power one needs—and lacks the requisite wisdom (and agency) to bring that power to bear.
Cultivating Wisdom
How does one begin to cultivate this wisdom, in an effort to truly make all the tools and resources one has useful? The good news is that this wisdom and agency can both be cultivated in the doing of one small act. And that is: the doing of one small act.
When we actually take action—no matter how small—something important happens. We actually make contact with the real world. Even if we make this small step in spite of all the tools and information we feel that we lack or still need. This is actually the point.
Because on the other side of that better piece of equipment, or that YouTube video, or in-depth article…is a better plan of action that we only think exists. But we must see through this illusion:
That grander plan for action is itself a theory, or at the least of which is based very heavily on one.
And further yet, that grander plan for action may never cease to be anything more than that: a plan.
This “plan” is more of an un-actualized theory than anything—and one that may be far less powerful than you think in the first place.
And this is a very different thing apart from the initial allure of that “better” way forward, in the future.
This is in contrast to everything that comes to be when we take one small step forward, in reality. By making contact with the real world through actually having done something instead of thought about it, we actually gain context about what it is we are trying to do. And it is this context that provides that backdrop upon which to discern between what is trivial, and what is worthwhile.
By gaining context and understanding (the key point there), we give our theories and ideas a chance to be tested for their true worth. In short, it’s by using a hammer that you gain any understanding of how well it’s crafted. Anything before that is just conjecture.
Even in the case where one can do tremendous amounts of research on something—tools, ideas, philosophies, mindsets, and the like…it is not until after one has gained sufficient context through experience that one is able to “sort through the noise” and know what, if any of that matters.
In an age of information, the information itself is no longer “power” in the same way that it was for the kings and queens of old. The ability to parse this infinite torrent of information for what is relevant is becoming the new delimiter of our time.
And this ability is cultivated through careful experience. Not careful in the sense that one labors to avoid danger, but careful in the way that one pays attention to something as though it matters enough to be payed attention to.
The Way Forward
In light of action being important, why do I go through the trouble of mentioning “small” action in particular? Because “small” comprises the realm of anything you will actually do. Any task, any idea that eludes your will to act is “too large.” And the point at which things become too large to be done, is the point beyond which everything is detached from reality and exists only in theory and conjecture.
Beyond this point, however rationale something might seem, it might only seem that way because it exists devoid of any context that could offer anything to the contrary. It might even be the case mathematically that the further one delves into the realm of the abstract, the more likely it is that things will feel rational. Simply because at a certain point into the abstract, all you are left with is your mind.
Much like picking a list of your favorite restaurants and then asking your spouse from which of those places she’d like to eat. All of the choices are right in your book.
In the case of abstract rationality, you are both you and your spouse.
The more time one truly spends in the “presence” of the world, the better in tune one becomes with what is. This is in contrast to spending time in the “re-presence” or “representation” of the world—where things are less like they are, and more like one thinks them to be. Now to be clear, representations are incredibly useful. That is why we use them. I mean to say that their initial success has a way of self propogating their own importance, well to the point where they become out of touch and lose their holistic effectiveness.
By taking action in the real world, our understanding of it becomes more holistic, more contextual—and our representations of it become more relevant and in touch. In a way, we become more skilled. And likewise, any tools or theories we do devise are more likely to be genuinely useful to us.
I began this article with the title “Humble Beginnings Are The Only Beginnings”. I suppose I mean to say that the only “beginnings” that do end up existing are the ones that are humble enough to have been begun.
No other beginnings are ever begun.
One step forward in reality is worth more than 100 steps removed from it.
You can take that first step today.
I wish you the best,
— David Kennedy