#40 in Seth Godin's The Practice
While taking a walk the mathematician Pythagoras becomes enchanted by a sound coming from a blacksmith workshop. Inside he discovered the source as five hammers striking metal. To study what precisely about the hammers lends to such sound he takes them for study.
After weighing and measuring the five hammers, it turns out the weights of the first four differed in ratios lending to pitches that constitute a perfect harmony. The fifth hammer's weight is the only one to not aligned. So he removes the fifth hammer to tunnel vision on the first four.
It turns out that the secret sauce to the enchanting sound is the oddball pitch from the fifth hammer. Godin concludes this section with:
The fifth hammer is the one that's not proven, not obvious, or not always encouraged.
The fifth hammer is you when you choose the practice and trust yourself enough to create.
Does having a generation of people believing they are destined to be the fifth hammer lead to happy, purposeful, and fulfilled people. I wondered this while reading #40 of The Practice. In this example I interpret Godin as encouraging us to be the fifth hammer. But isn't the fifth one only possible if it has the other four... the normal... to contrast?
So then what does it mean for Godin to be one of the first four? Are they simply fifth hammers who are waiting to get their shot to be the fifth? Or are they lesser because they choose the proven, obvious, and maybe more encouraged path?
I'm not sure about that, and that might be me reaching a bit. But I have become more critical about the bullishness of thought leaders encouraging creators to index so heavily on their uniqueness. Not because I find individuality and uniqueness to be unimportant -- I actually think the opposite -- but because the fifth hammer is only the fifth because of the backdrop of the four.
Maybe he understands that most will become the four anyways, so he's aruging that we should always strive to be the fifth. But I believe that just like Maslow's hierarchy, we should focus on getting enough of the first four hammers (competence) before we start so bullishly encouraging everyone to be an oddball.
This is coming from a lifetime oddball so my perspective is heavily biased towards encouraging competency over creativity. Because I believe that creativity is best fostered by competence.
Key question I have from this is: Do we want a world filled with only fifth hammers?
So then what does it mean for Godin to be one of the first four? Are they simply fifth hammers who are waiting to get their shot to be the fifth? Or are they lesser because they choose the proven, obvious, and maybe more encouraged path?
I'm not sure about that, and that might be me reaching a bit. But I have become more critical about the bullishness of thought leaders encouraging creators to index so heavily on their uniqueness. Not because I find individuality and uniqueness to be unimportant -- I actually think the opposite -- but because the fifth hammer is only the fifth because of the backdrop of the four.
Maybe he understands that most will become the four anyways, so he's aruging that we should always strive to be the fifth. But I believe that just like Maslow's hierarchy, we should focus on getting enough of the first four hammers (competence) before we start so bullishly encouraging everyone to be an oddball.
This is coming from a lifetime oddball so my perspective is heavily biased towards encouraging competency over creativity. Because I believe that creativity is best fostered by competence.
Key question I have from this is: Do we want a world filled with only fifth hammers?
Like I'm Lou Will', I just got the new deal
I am in the Matrix, and I just took the blue pill
Drake - 6 Man
