Persistence and Flexibility

Reading about the experiences of a web startup, the following comment caught my eye:

The key lessons I’ve learnt are the importance of being persistent and flexible in your mindset. It’s inevitable that you will go through tough times, and that your idea will evolve a lot, but what differentiates you as a startup founder is the determination you have to stick with it, and your ability to adapt.

Persistence and flexibility – two things that often seem to people like opposites. Either you are fully committed and let nothing derail you, stubbornly ploughing on oblivious to setbacks and failures, or you learn from experience, and when something is going very very badly, bite the bullet and give up.

Like a lot of important traits, what is important is learning to work with seeming opposites, and that is something that can’t be taught by just telling someone “be persistent”, “be flexible”, or even “be persistent and yet flexible”. It’s something that must be learned experientally.

Other such opposites, at least for entrepreneurs, are described in the book Smart Luck.

I described another pair of paradoxical qualities in my post on Patient Energy.

That is once again topical, as the Northern Ireland peace process reaches another huge milestone. Many people deserve great credit for that, including Tony Blair who has demonstrated incredible patience, energy and resilience in that area over ten years.

Is Moving to India a Good Idea?

Ten years ago, I probably had a great opportunity to be in on the ground floor of China’s transformation. At the time, I knew it was going to be big, but it wasn’t such common knowledge then. I was doing an MBA where I had good Chinese and Taiwanese friends. I started to learn Mandarin. If I’d really wanted to, and had really gone for it, probably I could have started a new life there. And possibly made a lot of money for myself, and made a lot of difference there too.

Today, I’m asking myself the same questions about India.

The BBC has an interesting piece Brits head to India. Selected snippets:

“My major concerns were around the general poverty, the fear of malaria that all British seem to have – and the standard of living,” he says.
“But… amid India’s economic boom, Mumbai life is surprisingly easy.”

“I miss my family, my friends, the dialogue, the contact, simple things like finishing work and going to a pub for a glass of wine,” she says.

Meandering vs Commitment

If this blog has a central theme, it is that of inquiring into Meandering vs Commitment.

A good many schools of thought extol the virtues of commitment. Especially in existentialist philosophy and in approaches to personal development spawned by that. For example, Martin Heidegger held up the ideal of the resolute life, in which a person creates the meaning of their own life by freely choosing its central purpose and mission, which is then to be followed resolutely, in the face of whatever challenges and tribulations may come.

But at the same time, there are schools of thought that extol being-in-the-moment. For example, a text of Buddhism says:

"The Buddha's monks do repent the past, nor do they brood over the future. Hence they are radiant."

And indeed they are often strikingly radiant and have a zest for the present moment, however mundane and routine that moment might seem to most people.

At the same time, they are in another way living a very committed kind of life. Some kinds of Buddhist monk take a vow to save all sentient beings! Which is the very example of the existentialist conception of a resolute life.

It's been said that the opposite of a great truth is also a great truth.

These issues play out on many levels.

For example, in the development field, there is a great debate between those who believe in creating a grand strategy for ending poverty on the planet, and those who distrust grand visions and believe in being pragmatic, and simply doing here and now what they see can really be done, and has a likelihood of working.

David Lodge on Joyce’s Choices

I'm reading David Lodge's "The Practice of Writing". One chapter is called "Joyce's Choices"…

These are some of key choices that Joyce made and stuck to with extraodinary steadfastness: to renounce the Catholic faith in which he was brought up; to become an artist rather than a priest, or a doctor or a lawyer; to live for most of his life in exile from Ireland…turn his back on the Irish Literary Movement; and to form a permanent monogamous relationship with a woman of humble background, limited education and such scant interest in literature that she never read Ulysses.

It is interesting to compare and contrast Joyce in this respect with Soren Kierkegaard, the great philosopher of existential choice…. Kierkegaard himself however had the greatest difficulty in exercising choice in his personal life. When he was twenty-one he met and fell in love with Regine. In due course the couple became engaged, but almost at once Kierkegaard began to doubt the wisdom of his decision, and convinced himself that because of his character and temparement he could never make Regine happy. After about a year he broke off the engagement… He tried to convince himself he had acted rightly, but secretly hoped that somehow, through no will of his own, the broken engagement would be mended and Regine restored to him.

Why do I mention all this?

Because I am trying to understand if the resolute and committed life given over to one great purpose, which is recommended by all kinds of people, is all that it's cracked up to be. What are the qualities of a life lived in the context of a few big commitments, compared to a life in flow in the moment?

The examples of Joyce and Kierkegaard are interesting. The theoriser about the necessity of choosing, and someone actually making choices and sticking to them.

A key difference seems to be the inner certainty and confidence that Joyce felt in himself and in his choices.