Jargogled Impressions.

We mostly respect the concrete and the particular aspects of people, not the abstract and the universal ~ Dedicated by Pete Davis

There’s an oddly strong need for concreteness in our encounters with the real world. Our conversations with our family and our friends are so much richer when we have specific opinions or emotions that we can share. Further, when we are paying attention on the nuances of body language and facial expressions, we are seeking concrete signals for how to actively listen to what others are saying and respond in a thoughtful way. When you are focusing on the concrete – what is being said, how is it being said, you begin to be fully present in the moment and can engage with others in a meaningful way.

Newspapers and social media tend to distract us from concreteness. When everything around the world is on fire and needs our urgent attention, then nothing gets our attention. It pays then to focus our attention on our immediate surroundings, our local communities, our physical surroundings. To pay attention to the colors, textures, and shapes of the objects around us means we take the extra step to understand the world around us, not by derived eyes of someone else but our own vision.

Human mind is a wonderful thing. We are capable of abstract thoughts, of imagination, of transcending the barrier of space-time. It allows us to dream big and imagine new possibilities. However, our minds are also easily distractable and prone to wandering. We can, in the style of Walter Mitty, easily get lost in abstract thoughts and lose sight of the concrete reality around us. And yet, when it comes to stories and fictional yarns, the more specific the details, the more we are moved by them.

*Oddly specific words are also funny. It’s funnier for me to say, “I’m pouring water over Raisin Bran because I am too stupid and lazy to buy milk” than it is to say, “I’m pouring water over a bowl of cereal.” Why? Specificity is funny. ~ Story Worthy by Matthew Dicks*

David Allen, in his classic book “Getting Things Done”, extends the concept of concreteness to the realm of productivity. His “next best action” dictum is a master class in distilling our complex, gnarly, and often anxiety-provoking projects into concrete set of next best actions. By doing so, he says, we free up our minds from the invisible baggage of carrying the various ins and outs of the project in our heads. By being concrete – using tools of writing it down and saving it in a system that we can refer to – Allen emphasizes the crucial advantages of building this second brain, an extension of our cognitive engine.

In “Working Backwards”, a treatise on the writing culture at Amazon, the authors demonstrate the importance of concreteness through the ‘press briefing’ process that product leads follow. By being concrete in what we envisioned to be delivered to the customer – through a well-known and thoroughly public medium of a press release, product teams can refine their thinking through explaining the end state to the customer ahead of building it.

*”Specificity is the soul of narrative.” – John Gardner, “The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers”*

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way ~ Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Our flaws are concrete. Our sorrows are concrete. I often wonder though, why our happiness is so generalized. It’s almost as if we have collectively failed to arrive at a common definition of happiness and it lies there beckoning at every turn. The more you look for it, the more elusive it becomes. There are not necessarily “events” of happiness most times as there are for the sorrows that befell us.

“Specificity is the hallmark of a master. The more specific you can be about what you want, the more likely you are to achieve it.” – Robert Greene, “Mastery”

There’s a fable I heard somewhere that goes like this –

Once upon a time, a young fox was out hunting in the forest. The fox saw a flock of birds flying overhead and decided to catch one. The fox ran as fast as he could and jumped as high as he could, but he missed the birds by a mile. The fox realized that he was not specific in his goal. He just wanted to catch a bird, but he did not specify which bird, how he would catch it, or where he would catch it. So, he failed.

Concreteness in our goals can be a superpower. Knowing what you want sounds easy, but we are derived beings, and our wants are mimetic. They are influenced and informed and intimidated by what we see around us. And since the world has so much to show us, more so as technology expands its reach of what we can see, our goals so often become muddled. Even when you have a strong start, and a defined goal, we turn it into a veritable mush the more we immerse ourselves in the current thing.

A part of being concrete in our goals involve being comfortable with uncertainty and being comfortable with mediocrity. Why mediocrity? Because when you choose goals that are distinctly your own, you are bound to meet obstacles along the way. These obstacles are either systemic or driven by your own pathological fears. As you are competing with those that are bereft of these obstacles, you find yourself in ‘mediocristan’. Which is where things start getting interesting.

How you deal with this interim state defines how long you will stay here. A ‘bias for action’ can do wonderful things. A sticky goal requires grit, layers of deep concreteness levels, a hearty regard for action, and an irreverent penchant for outcomes. Why irreverent? Because an unhealthy regard for outcomes can lead you astray – it can confound your abilities to look the next best action.