Art

A Child's Artwork

Some children are happiest when they have a marker in their hand and a large blank sheet of paper on which to explore whatever is in their imagination. Why would we as analysts wish to abandon the creativity of our children? We should have the ability to finger paint, if we so desire. We should have the ability to use play dough to sculpt a fictional creature, or have the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to paint our masterpiece. In addition to neglecting the science, the artistic side of analysis is often forgotten.

We have heard in our office many times that analysis is part science and part art. The science part is most often mistaken for the engineering. But the art side is also not what they are thinking and is a catchall phrase used to explain soft things that are not well understood. Art as it is commonly expressed is more like black art. Something mystical that can’t be defined that emerges as a result of a “not quite” understanding of the black boxes containing algorithms or procedures to which a problem was committed in order to obtain a calculated solution. Presto a result appears.

We are not talking about this black art, mysticism, or even the fog of war as expressed in analysis. We are talking about true artistic freedom of expression to explore a blank sheet of paper. But unlike science that is methodically seeking answers, the artist is trying to generate questions. And of course, these essays do not take the place of “Finger Painting 101” and are not intended to get you to think like a Thomas Edison. We can, however, establish a few rules to follow which you should consider adding to you tool box.

First dispense with any boundaries. This is the blank sheet of paper and should cut across parochial boundaries and fiefdoms you know already exist. Take their budget; take their programs, what would you do with a million dollars. There are many ways to skin this cat, you can call it brainstorming if you want, but there are rules to brainstorming. Use the ones that work for you and get it done.

Inspiration comes from many places. But unless you seek it, you will never find it. Find your source and cultivate it. Just like putting on your lab coat for your science experiment, you should find inspirational moments to be highly satisfying. For us they have never occurred at the office. They occur bolt right up in the middle of the night, during long runs or soccer games. They just might be the single most satisfying moment of our profession short of proving a Zealot wrong and having him removed from his job.

Along with inspiration be creative. Change the medium in which you work. Change the people whom which you work. If you have a brain you can be creative – that’s the funny thing about our brains – it’s up to you to unlock your creative side.

Now, unlike engineering, which could be executed in larger teams, and science, which should be done with small teams, art should be reduced to the smallest or even single individual. Michelangelo worked alone. You cannot have even two people painting on the same canvas. This will be the hardest thing to do. If it is your art it will be a part of you and you will want to show it off and be as proud as your children are to hang their painting on the refrigerator. However, unfortunately, just as a parent is proud of their child’s artwork, hanging in the refrigerator may be the right place for it. Just because it was your creation and you are attached to it does not make it the Mona Lisa. Some self-control is warranted here. But you will not necessarily know until you host an exhibit. Get your artwork out there. This could be dangerous to your pride – and perhaps why many of us lose the creative child in us. If our drawing of a lion, which our grandmother mistook for a raccoon, embarrassed us perhaps we stopped drawing. If we were embarrassed by our voice, perhaps we stopped singing. Nothing ventured nothing gained here though, so put on a thick skin and hang your ideas on the refrigerator at work. You don’t have to sign your name, but you should allow them to make comments.

But how do you really know if you have created something that can be described as art. How do you know you have created something that resembles the truth or something that will be appreciated by more than just your mom? Here to we believe we can help.

The truth will be self-evident. The Golden Gate Bridge is self-evident to most. Most great works of art indeed are self-evident to many. Why is this the case? Because during the creative and inspired times of an artist, based on all the experience and hard work they had done up until that point, a moment of clarity on the solution shines through. This is the 1% inspiration moment followed by the subsequent 99% perspiration that can be handled by the engineers who will build the project.

Another way you will know if your product has achieved the status of art will be if the senior decision maker to whom your analysis was aimed sees something in the solution that filled in a missing hole in their intuition. They might not have even recognized that there was something missing, perhaps just a feeling. But bang, if you nailed it, they will know it and let you know as well.

Free Soloing

The feature article in the May 2011, National Geographic is entitled, “Daring, Defiant, Free”. I believe these same three words characterize the essence of what is required to be on the front end of a scientific revolution. In his April 4th blog, Merf gives us a passage to read on scientific revolution taken from the book, “Chaos: Making a New Science”, by James Gleick. Gleick has applied his words to tip of the spear activities that were going on with the creation of chaos theory more than two decades ago. But his passage is timeless and applies to any worthy endeavor that must first overcome a mountain of resistance in order to succeed. It is within the words “mountain of resistance” that I see the parallels to the National Geographic article and begin this essay.

Seated in his office to my left is Alex Honnold. When he was 23 years old he climbed Half Dome in Califorina’s Yosmite Valley…without a rope. In this picture he is relaxing on what they call “Thank God Ledge” during an encore climb he executed, also without a rope. It’s important to understand that I am ghastly afraid of heights. As I stare at this picture I become physically ill. I experience vertigo while sitting in my padded  chair. I want to scream out in fear. I want to look away, turn the picture over, or otherwise remove the image from my mind. Alex is clearly a daring, defiant, and free individual. Some might also say…and here it is…that he is crazy. That he is stark raving mad, a lunatic, and belongs in a padded cell vice a comfortable chair. Sound familiar? But he has overcome gravity to climb a mountain as free and effortlessly as we ascend a flight of stairs…well maybe not as effortlessly…but certainly with no strings attached.

I cannot walk out onto a hotel porch above the fourth floor without backing myself up against the wall…even though I know the probability of me plummeting to my death is zero. These completely irrational fears must be deep seated in my psyche perhaps as an over manifestation of a survival instinct. Individuals without those instincts plummeted to their death and were removed from the gene pool of my linage. However, my direct ancestors survived, apparently by backing up against the wall when they walked out onto their cave balconies. Alex Honnold’s ancestors must have not only walked out on their balconies, but climbed higher in search of food. Those who stayed at home with their backs against the wall were the ones who perished. But it was a slower death, one via starvation rather than a fast decent to the rocks below. I am definitely in the slow starvation camp. Nevertheless some of my ancestors must have survived as well so living with your back up against the wall must have worked out in some cases. In fact, in the main, living life conservatively definitely increases ones chances of survival in most cases.

The same is true with most things we humans do. But if most of the scientific community is staying at home with their backs against the security of their cave walls, how then are we to discover the improbable? How do the scientists that start the revolutions become daring, defiant, and free individuals? I don’t think it’s magic. I think it’s through hard work.

As improbable as his feat may seem it didn’t just happen. Alex works unbelievably hard at his sport. All world class athletes do. It would be easy to dismiss Alex as a crackpot with a death wish. But that’s the furthest thing from the truth. In order for him to climb Half-dome without a rope he climbed Half-dome many times before. He has climbed the route so many times he has memorized the moves and holds necessary. In fact they are so ingrained in his brain; he can, as so many world class athletes do, visualize his movements ahead of time. He didn’t just show up at the granite wall of Half Dome and begin his ascent, free of ropes. So too is true with all great genius. The foundations for genius are set through hard work and discipline. Mandelbrot could visualize the equations in his head because his head was full of the math he needed to see a fractal in the clouds. That doesn’t mean that everyone with equations jammed in their head can be Mandelbrot…or with climbing acumen can be Honnold for that matter. It takes more…much more. And equations are not even the science. Equations form the discipline behind the science.

In rock climbing the engineering behind the sport is found in the discipline of the equipment. The devices that are used to secure climbers safely to a smooth granite surface, the knots and the rope which serpentine through high strength aluminum carabineers, and of course the tight fitting rubbery climbing shoes that when smeared cross a granite face stick like glue. And then practice...a lot of practice.  Mind numbing repetition of these same skills over and over again.  After the foundational basics become routine then more advanced studies can proceed.  The science is in the experimentation and discovery of new tools for the rock climber’s arsenal as well as the techniques of movement and conservation of movement. If you get tired lifting your 180 lbs carcass up a flight of stairs consider climbing a ladder that’s 1300 feet straight up. Years of climbing science came ahead of the current generation of modern climbers that now enable what comes next…the artistry.  Until Honnold first climbed Half Dome with all his equipment, and then free climbed Half Dome with minimal equipment, he was not ready to create his free solo masterpiece.

With the final package comes the inspiration and creativity to do something new with the foundation and legacy of what came before. Sometime that path leads to incremental changes in the status quo. Occasionally, a revolutionary leap can be made. Typically, when a revolution is at hand, there is no shortage of the old guard screaming about the impossibility of it all, telling the few that might see a better way that they are crazy, and laying before them a mountain of resistance that is the hallmark of a shallow thinker.

Now that is not to say there is no risk involved. There is huge risk involved. And the penalties for miscalculation, as Clausewitz has said, as are the miscalculations that lead to war, could very easily lead to death. Certainly a physical death for rock climbers ascending a stone face without safety gear, but they could also lead to the death of a publication, a reputation, or a career. But for those brave few, those that can be daring, defiant, and free from the gravity of the ties that bind a revolution awaits. Just make sure when you begin your free solo of your granite mountain you have nerves of steel and have prepared as well as Alex Honnold.