Perfection is a glorious and superficial crown placed on the head of deep rightness.
When perfection is the material of which a thing is constructed, that thing will have a hollowness that can never be filled.
*
It is true: best practices are often found in the best work. But the atomist interpretation — that this means that best work is somehow composed of best practices — is not only factually wrong, it is practically counterproductive.
Unfortunately, the atomist interpretation is not so counterproductive that its results fail entirely. And indeed, the atomist world defines success by avoidance of failure and evasion of blame. Atomism produces acceptable work, and it does so reliably and linearly.
*
The error becomes more obvious when we consider it in the realm of art. Musical best practices are certainly found in the best music — once the music has come into being. But when those best practices are the generative principle of the music, the music is dull.
There’s nothing wrong with the music. The music might even be perfect.
It’s just that there’s nothing intensely right about it.
There’s nothing to hate, but there is nothing to love.
But without some particular thing to hate, when we “can’t put our finger” on what is wrong, most people become a little flustered and ashamed and feel compelled to accept the thing as good.
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Fact is, the best things are the best, not by virtue of being composed of best practices, but by virtue of discovery of the right kind of being for that particular creation, and manifesting that being fully. The flawed accomplishment of this, sets the stage for removal of flaws within the limits of fidelity to the particular spirit of the creation.
*
There is no love
Where there is no obstacle
And there is no love
Where there is no bramble
There is no love
On the hacked-away plateau
And there is no love
In the unerring
And there is no love
On the one true path
*
In the musical world, a muzo is someone who constructs music from best practices and reliably plays this error-free music without mistakes.
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Musicians take risks to create what needs creation. The process produces flaws, but the process also transfigures flaws into new beauty.
Maybe the true product of art is transfiguration of flaws.
Perhaps what makes us love art is the discovery of new love for what was taken for flaw.
The doing of art enriches the world in outspiraling consecration.
*
Business grows to grow. It doesn’t know any constraints besides material self-interest. (This, by the way, is not a universal property of human beings, only the common but limited soul of the born merchant.)
But business compulsively serves demand with supply. It cannot stop itself, even if this will ultimately end its own dominance.
Business grew and overgrew art and choked it out. (By art I do not mean entertainment. Entertainment is passive. Art requires effort.)
Now business has to fill the vacuum it has created, because this vacuum is demand.
Business will have to change fundamentally to fill this demand.
It will have to learn to transcend the functional. This will require a changing of the guard.
Business’ hardest lesson will be learning the difference between a musician and a muzo.
*
The irruption of art into business is brand.
Brand is changing because we have changed, as a culture and as individuals.
Brand began as the identifying mark. Then it became a value proposition, and later a promise. Then it became style — an association of feeling with a thing or a function.
Now it is something else. And what it is becoming is hard to talk about.
We won’t learn to talk about it until we learn to think differently.
*
An atomist couple wanted to have a baby together. They began with an inventory of best-of-breed babies. Based on their findings concluded that their baby would be assembled out of ten fingers and ten toes, two arms and two legs a torso and a sizable head. Attached to the head would be two eyes, two ears, one mouth (teeth TBD) and one nose with no more than two nostrils. The torso would be stuffed with an assortment of organs, organized according to biological best practices. Their initial budget was only enough for a small handful of baby, so they realized they needed to take a phased approach. They identified objectives — adorability, cuddlability, and scalability (a.k.a. growability) — and used these objectives to prioritize the various body parts.
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Muzos aren’t musicians with a missing something.
Muzos are musicians with a missing everything.
A musician can grow to be as perfect as a muzo, but the perfection only honors their art, it does not make it.