The digital age version of the proverbial tree falling in the woods question is: Does something exist if it hasn’t been liked, favorited, linked to, or re-tweeted? According to many tech critics, the tragic answer is no. Like Lady Gaga, we live for the applause. But if constantly chasing other people’s approval is a shallow way to live that leads to time and energy being wasted over pleasing others and recurring feelings of insecurity and emptiness, how can we course correct?
The first step is to acknowledge a problem exists. Too many people are desperate for attention and build their self-esteem with bricks made of external recognition. Take Rameet Chawla, founder of the mobile app company Fueled. Feeling spurned by friends who didn’t appreciate that he simply was too busy to like their pics on Instagram, Chawla became desperate and resorted to a depressing measure: outsourcing faux sentiment to technology. He actually designed a program that automatically liked the photos other people posted, and then, voilà, his “popularity soared.”
Although this isn’t a new malady, the latest instance is a sign of the times. Explanations of the current selfie-obsessed guise typically point to a constellation of contemporary behavior-shaping forces: social media platforms like Facebook being designed to suck maximum self-centered content out of us; Klout scores overlaying Twitter with a celebrity ethos, where the goal of acquiring followers becomes an end-in-itself; self-branding and personae management becoming ubiquitous and eroding the boundaries between public and private correspondence; companies pushing their products and services through promotional schemes that turn consumers into marketers; and, reality TV and viral YouTube clips inspiring folks to desire becoming famous….simply for doing extreme things and being talked about. Even PBS’s Frontline couldn’t resist ending the televised version of media theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s excellent critical discussion of these issues, “Generation Like,” with an appeal for viewers to like it on social media.
The second step is to embrace a view long championed by philosophers, theologians, and psychologists: constantly looking to other people to affirm that your pursuits are worthy and your efforts admirable is a surefire way to veer off the path of the good life. Or, as Friedrich Nietzsche aptly put the positive version of this thesis: “The noble soul has reverence for itself.” For without a healthy dose of self-determination and intrinsic motivation, self-development gets stymied and tasks rich with possibilities lose their potential for meaning.
Consider the existential spin on damnation that French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre provided in a play about hell being other people. The despair Sartre’s characters attest to in “No Exit” emerges because of intense co-dependence.
Sure, we depend on others for a variety of things, including the honest feedback that prevents personal growth from getting derailed by ignorance and rationalization. But depending too much on other people’s approval dooms us to a slavish existence, perpetually chasing after elusive affirmations that can boost self-worth. As Sartre saw it, when we live through other people’s eyes, we’re kept off balance, teetering in a frazzled state of dependency—much like a desperate drug addict searching for a quick hit that, at its best, can only bring temporary euphoria.
The third step is appreciating that healthy self-worth is an obtained ideal.
Powerful as Sartre’s warning is, it can ring hollow. Without resonant real world examples, it’s hard to get a clear sense of who to admire and, ironic as it might seem, emulate. Some see Pope Francis as an exemplar of humility. But he’s hard to live up to!
Fortunately, David Zweig (who, disclaimer, is a friend of mine) completed the third step for us, writing the Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self Promotion, a forthcoming book that takes us into the lives of people who do amazing work that others depend on, but who toil away in obscurity, unknown to the general public. Bucking the cultural trend of pursuing success by gobbling up attention and praise, “Invisibles” see the pursuit of excellence itself as one of life’s ultimate rewards. Zweig believes –and I do, too—that if we walk the metaphorical mile in their shoes, we can better appreciate why praise from fans isn’t necessary to motivate the development of a virtuous character: to cultivate expertise, to commit to work requiring meticulous detail, and to embrace a heightened sense of responsibility.
To give us a sense of what makes Invisibles tick and why they are such a satisfied group, Zweig profiles fascinating folks—meeting up with them personally, and taking us along for a behind the scenes tour. We’re introduced to Jim Harding, a specialist in wayfinding who strives to ensure buildings like airports are properly designed to help people get where they need to be. We catch up with David Apel, the main perfumer responsible for creating some of Sean Combs’s (aka P. Diddy) famous scents, as well as bestsellers for Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. We get to peek into the world of Dennis Poon, the lead structural engineer of China’s Shanghai Tower—a skyscraper so big it’s reported to be the second largest in the world. We also get a glimpse into the lives of Giulia Wilkins Ary, a fast paced United Nations interpreter, Robert Elswit, an Academy Award winning cinematographer, Pete Clements (aka Plank), the guitar tech for Radiohead, and Peter Stumpf, the piano technician for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
The “Invisibles” may have their priorities straight, but they shouldn’t be mistaken for saints. Far from rebuking all forms of external motivation, you get a sense that they appreciate being financially compensated for their efforts, and derive satisfaction from their peers acknowledging that they produce quality work. They even highly regard public accolades. Crucially, though, they don’t seek them out—as is aptly illustrated by a memorable wish that a ghost-writer relayed to Zweig: “My fantasy is to sit down on a plane next to someone reading one of my books and not say anything to him the whole flight. I just want to watch them read it, take in their body language and see what parts they’re enjoying…My dream is to just soak it in. Anonymously.”
The more I read about the lives of “Invisibles” the more I thought about German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s analysis of tools. In his seminal work Being and Time he points out that when things are going well, we don’t think at all about our tools. Instead, we focus entirely on the task hand—say, composing an e-mail on a laptop and taking the Internet’s reliability for granted. But if a tool breaks or malfunctions, we’re drawn to explicitly consider the utility it provides and the supporting networks and infrastructure required to build, maintain, and repair it. When we can’t get on G-mail, our minds quickly turn to a range of possibilities that run from problems with our computer to issues with the cable company or Google.
In a sense, the “Invisibles” are just like this—they blend into the background of our lives and only become noticeable when something goes wrong. The better they do their jobs, the less we know about them. And so our eyes are drawn to the flash of tangible things, giving rise to the illusion that what we see is what we should want to get.
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OneLove
:::MME:::
