I did an interview with a poet recently, who talked about letting her work take its own time, letting it be bad for a long frustrating time during which she kept thinking, "I should have a book by now." The next day, I talked to a university administrator about the University of Minnesota's plan to achieve excellence, top three status. The two conversations fuse in my memory. The trouble is just this: when excellence is demanded, weak people respond by saying, "Ok, I am going to make this book happen now. If they are competent writers, the result is a pretty good book. Put a lot of such people together and you get a pretty good university. How does one produce a climate for something better, where people quietly say, "Nothing else will do, but what this work wants to be."
I think the right answer comes from Jesus: "Don't let the right hand know what the left hand is doing," for not just almsgiving but every other worthwhile human activity. Feynman said that it was a problem not to teach, because when he wasn't teaching and wasn't being creative, he felt totally worthless. Teaching gave him something to do to pass the time, waiting for the next idea.
Of course, you have to care about excellence -- and several other big things. But it doesn't do to say so.
Posted by shea0017 at May 10, 2006 10:52 AM