Eric's Question

"Two things I could tell somebody else how to do, but no way I could do them for myself, are, writing a novel and starting a band."

If you were to tell somehow how to start a rock band, what would you say?

And how to write a novel, what would you tell them?

I was really struck by the above quoted sentence because it seems to me that actually telling someone how to do those things would involve breaking down the large task into a series of small tasks. And that process, it seems, might be a good way to start doing it.

I'm not giving you advice here, just musing about it abstractly.

eric

Well,

I would probably do what you said. I would basically hang around the person all the time and say "You need to do this. Okay good, now do this." Etc. Etc. Etc.

I suppose there is a little lie in that sentence. "...but no way I could do them for myself..."

Right now I think I could do those things for myself. Really, it's not very different than doing it for someone else. It would take a bit of courage and a bit of discipline, but I think I could do it.

I suppose what I was trying to say with that sentence is the following. Starting bands and writing books are long term goals made up of lots of little tiny goals. Therefore they are easy to quit, and easy to corrupt. In "telling someone else" how to do those things I was splitting up responsibility between two egos. There is the one ego that wants the long term goal, and that ego is in charge of telling the other guy what to do. The other guy is in charge of the little tasks. He focuses on them and them only because that is how they must be done. He is much more likely to say "fuck it" if he doesn't feel like completing any one particular goal because he doesn't see it in perspective. If the long term ego tries to complete the short term goals, he will probably fuck them up because he isn't looking at them for what they are in themselves.

It is hard to split yourself up like that, I think. That is the point. Theoretically, it would be a lot easier complete these goals successfully if I had someone telling me what to do, or if I was telling someone else what to do. Division of labor, delegation of responsibility. In reality, however, it probably wouldn't be that much easier, simply because I like to do everything myself and I would never be sure that the other person was doing their job right.

I hope that answers your question. I was glad to write about it, because I wasn't too clear on what I meant by that sentece when I wrote it, and now I think I have a better idea.