Why We Gravitate Towards Spectacle
I am so freaking bored of this Blog. I just spent the better part of the last hour going over the archives and found that my writing is about as drab and lifeless as a crusty piece of old bread, but then I might be too kind.
No really. I can’t stand reading my stuff. How in the heck can I expect anybody else to read it?
Here’s the deal. I promise to put some life into my writing to get this Blog some constant readers, if you will promise to come back more regularly to read what I have written. Sound good?
Alright then, let’s begin.
Just the other day I was sitting at the kitchen table and saw billowing smoke rise into the air from just outside my home. I thought my neighbor’s house was on fire it was so close.
Turned out to be a fire at a recycling plant just a half block away. I grabbed my keys and got in my car. Yep, I’m an ambulance chaser.
Two mischievous boys (ages 11 and 13) wanted to make their mark on social landscape and lit the bundles of compressed cardboard and newspapers on fire while they recorded it on their cell phones.
The blaze was incredible. Within the hour more than several hundred people were crowded around this huge fire.
Which brings me to what I would like to talk about today. Why do we gravitate towards spectacle?
Just recently millions of people were drawn to the spectacle of the death of Michael Jackson. Not that he wasn’t talented and all. But I think the whole thing was a bit over the top.
It was the only thing on the news for weeks – still is. Why?
Farrah Fawcett died on the same day and she barely got a mention. But MJ wa practically lauded as a God.
Come now, back in the day, I bet there were just as many Farrah posters hanging on teenage boys walls compared to MJ posters on teenage girls walls. And hands down her posters were tons more appealing – to me anyways.
But do you think she got nearly as much press? No way close. Not enough spectacle I suppose.
So why is it that we do that? There must be a human gene that gravitates towards spectacle.
P.T. Barnum had it figured out. He could gather large crowds, hoards of people, to gawk over his spectacles. I wonder how he did it. He was a wonderful creator of spectacle.
I’ve got some ideas why I think people are drawn like magnets to spectacle, but I’d really like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Leave me a comment and tell me what you think. And also chime in on how you think creation, creators, and creating have anything to do with it.
Oh, and the fire burned all night long. The smoke was atrocious. I came very close to getting a hotel room far away. I almost couldn’t breathe that night.
Creators Get Back Up Again
Take a look at this powerful video. It’s amazing. Here is a young man who has no limbs – yep, you read that right, no arms or legs.
He doesn’t let that stop him. Instead he has found a way to be a living example, to inspire and lift others.
True creators never let the obvious realities stop them from creating powerful creations. Take a look and see for yourself how Nick Vujicic creates.
Creators Don’t Set Goals
Creators dream and most of them dream big, really big. In fact creators aren’t afraid to dream enormous dreams. They know that dreams are the seeds of what will eventually become their creations.
One thing though that creators don’t do is set goals. Now before you go off thinking that I am a complete fool in saying this, please give me a chance to explain myself.
You have no doubt searched many self development products throughout the years, and probably would agree that almost every single one of them in one way or another talks about goal setting. Am I right? Many of those self development products are tremendously powerful self development tools. I’m not writing this to disagree with goal setting. There are many great things to be said about goal setting.
Recently I read an article in the Early to Rise newsletter written by Michael Masterson which spoke of setting goals. It spoke of a study that was done by the Harvard Business School.
Harvard Business School did a study on the financial status of its students 10 years after graduation and found that:
- As many as 27 percent of them needed financial assistance.
- A whopping 60 percent of them were living paycheck to paycheck.
- A mere 10 percent of them were living comfortably.
- And only 3 percent of them were financially independent.
The study also looked at goal setting and found these interesting correlations:
- The 27 percent that needed financial assistance had absolutely no goal-setting processes in their lives.
- The 60 percent that were living paycheck to paycheck had basic survival goals (such as managing to live paycheck to paycheck).
- The 10 percent that were living comfortably had general goals. They thought they knew where they were going to be in the next five years.
- The 3 percent that were financially independent had written out their goals and the steps required to reach those goals.
Pretty powerful statistics in favor of goal setting wouldn’t you agree? Like I said I am not writing this article to disagree with goal setting. It’s just that for creators goals are too weak, too wimpy. Goals give too much wiggle room. Goals don’t carry enough umph to propel a true creator to the completion of their creation.
Creators create – plain and simple. It works like this: A creator dreams of what he would love to create, and then something almost magical occurs. The creator begins to love the creation. There begins to be a burning desire inside the creator to see the creation live. The creator will stop at nothing to bring the creation into existence. The creator begins to create. As the momentum increases the creators desire to see the creation exist increases as well. Passion, diligence, even obsession begin to drive the creator forward.
So you see goals are simply too weak to push the creator towards the creation. So what do creators do if they don’t set goals? How do creators ever accomplish anything of any significance if they don’t have goals to push them along?
I hope that I can explain the answers to those very important questions. Creators don’t have goals to push them along; instead creators have the creation that is pulling them towards its completion.
It’s kind of like this: Imagine a mountain climber trying to scale the side of a mountain. Below the climber is a goal that is trying to push the climber up the rock wall. Above however is a creation that has lowered a sturdy rope called structure (in later article I’ll describe what structure has to do with creating) that is pulling with great force. Which do you think will have more success in fulfilling its purpose, the goal or the creation? Which do you think is in a better position to bring the climber to its desired destiny?
As I hope you can see, goals simply aren’t powerful enough. And they are positioned in such a way that they cannot make use of powerful tools like passion, diligence, and even obsession. Creators create creations because they are driven towards and pulled by the creation itself.
The power to create is immensely more powerful then goals can or ever will be. In a further article I will explain why this is so. Come back soon to learn just how powerful this power is.
