The Steep Approach

I’ve been embarking on a new project recently, which harks all the way back to this rather hopeful sounding post from days gone by. The idea discussed therein has now begun to blossom somewhat, and I have some collaborators – stalwart friends both – who are lending their skills and advice. The project goes live around the end of this month (you’ll know when I start shamelessly and relentless plugging it) and I’m rather proud of the idea, if not the execution.

Without giving a huge amount away the project consists of interviews. Interviews with strangers. Random interviews with strangers. In a bustling capital like London thousands of tiny interactions with those unknown to us happen every day – a glance, a thank you, a hushed ‘fuck off and die’ muttered under the breath – but actually sitting down and chinwagging with someone you’ve previously never clapped eyes on is rarer. It happens in Richard Curtis films and Match.com adverts, but despite a similar air of befuddlement I look nothing like Hugh Grant or Colin Firth, and I don’t even know how to play guitar.

So forcing myself to interact with strangers has given me some interesting insights into the nature of social interaction in general, but more specifically into the concepts of personal space and 'approachability.'

I had never given much credence to the concept of auras (still don’t, save for the purpose of this analogy), but there is certainly an atmosphere around people that is discernible, readable. This is obvious and second nature to all but a few of us: anyone able to read someone’s body language, detect where a conversation is going or steer around a touchy subject is doing it competently without even thinking about it.

The genesis of my project was in America, where people are famously more approachable. This is certainly true, but once a dialogue had begun American people seemed to need more management: to me at least they seemed quicker to lose patience, quicker to become suspicious or tire of a subject. Instead of being closed off and gradually opening up they often seemed immediately candid and then worried about giving too much away.

Perversely I suspect most of this comes from the natural ease with which Americans conduct their own conversations. Americans are very good at talking to strangers; they do it all the time. Their interactions are swift, and industriously handled on both sides. They were attempting to manage me: to ease me through the dialogue. The only difference: I was a strange English boy asking them personal questions, and was attempting to marshal the conversation to get the most out of them. Small wonder many felt the need to stage a retreat when I got too personal.

It’s more difficult to get stuff out of English people, but once they get talking, it’s hard to shut them up. In terms of thermodynamics, Americans are great conductors of heat, English people very poor. They stay warmed up for a good long time if you can get them comfortable.

All this is moot if you can’t find the nads to approach people in the first place, and that’s where reading people comes in. It can be nerve-wracking, going up to strangers, although now that I think about it I cannot say for sure why that should be so. I have a list of questions to ask them – so I know what I’m going to say at least – and I consider myself relatively personable. I am not particularly concerned that someone might haul out and punch me, or start screaming rape or similar. Even if they don’t want to be interviewed (as is entirely their prerogative) all I get is a polite ‘no thank you.’

My own apprehension means that I tend to gravitate towards those who give off an air of approachability. People who radiate some sense – through body language, positioning, even appearance – that they wouldn’t be terribly bothered if an oddly earnest young man sat down opposite them and asked them about their lives. For the purposes of the project they have to be alone, which makes it easier, if only because those who are alone and don’t want to be bothered are pretty easy to spot.

Then only problem is that approaching people who are themselves approachable tends to give a biased sample base. For example, they tend to be younger or older, not middle aged. Younger women are less likely to tell you to go away immediately, but are more likely to be distant. I had expected women to be less often alone than men and was surprised to find this not the case, but men are more likely to occupy themselves with something regardless of where they are. A newspaper can be a formidable shield. Elements of people’s dress can render them distant or affable (and interestingly, the eccentricity of dress has little to do with it). I’ve become very good at picking out the easiest person to talk to in a room.

Unfortunately the easiest person to talk to may not always be the most interesting, or for the purposes of my project, the most varied in terms of life experience. So I’ve learnt some useful new skills only to have to discard them. I’m much better at recognising people who might want to talk, but have to avoid that sort of person if I’m not to repeat the same sort of interview over and over.

I’m exaggerating, of course. The best thing about people in general and Londoners in particular is that everyone is unique. Talk to anyone long enough and you’re certain to hit on something interesting, so no interview is going to be wasted. And the more I force myself to talk to people the more I begin to realise that approachable or not, most people, once approached, are willing to give you the time of day, especially if you explain yourself clearly and concisely.

So what have I really learned? The same thing I learn every week on this blog. To get over myself. ‘Aura of approachability’ my bum. Just don’t be surprised when I sit down next to you.

Lightbulb Moment

Here is a very clever and rather sexy guy named Stephen Johnson talking about ideas, or to be more specific, the climates and situations in which good ideas come about. He starts his presentation talking about the lightbulb moment: that sudden flash of cognitive energy when inspiration strikes.

Of all the theories about ideas, this is the most prevalent. The concept of inspiration being a fleeting, momentary sensation is rather well established, going back at least to Archimedes, who had his trope codifying 'Eureka' moment while chillin' in the bath.

The generally understood notion is that inspiration strikes as an outside force: the solution to a problem bursts fully formed from somewhere else, some other situation, another piece of understanding, or perhaps simply from the ether. My favourite depiction of ideas comes from Terry Pratchett, who in one of his novels describes them as an actual universal force: actual particles of inspiration sleet through the fabric of the universe, occasionally striking a receptive neuron and leading to the birth of another idea. One of 'Leonard Of Quirm's' (Pratchett's counterpart to Leonardo Da Vinci) first inventions is a metal hat designed to keep these inspiration particles out, as he is embarrassed to keep waking up to find new designs for siege engines scrawled all over his bedsheets. 

In his presentation, Stephen Johnson points out that most truly good ideas do not come from nowhere, but are actually the product of a climate of intellectual discussion, industrial drive and general investigative discourse. My favourite moment in the talk is when he links the sudden scientific rush of the Enlightenment to the introduction of coffee into early modern British society. Up until that point most of what people drank during the day would have been alcoholic, which hardly pertains to an atmosphere of frantic industry. Suddenly people were sitting around drinking coffee all day instead of beer and the scientific breakthroughs started to flow (this might also explain why those swotty, tea-drinkin' ancient Chinese were inventing fireworks and paper and stuff while we were still messing around with earth kilns).

So the coffee house and the scientific institute became the nexus of good ideas, and remain so to this day. But Archimedes didn't have his revelation in a coffee shop, he had it half-way into the bathtub.

I'm bringing this up because I recently had what I consider to be a good idea myself. I'm off to America in the spring of next year, partly for research for the novel but mostly because I have itchy feet. I've always felt the need to go to America: it's the seat of practically all my culture, and so a trip there is a pilgrimage of sorts, as well as an adventure.

I had idly explored various ways to write about the trip. The simplest one would probably be a blog, something I'm obviously no stranger to. In fact, the first blog I ever wrote was a travelogue of my journey through New Zealand, Australia and Borneo with my girlfriend. The girlfriend sadly decided to find someone else, but the blog still exists, and you can read it  here if you like.

I decided, however, that I didn't  feel like writing a blog about my time in America. Firstly it can be a little bit time consuming, which doesn't always work out if you are constantly on the road. Also the pressure to keep constantly updating can make it seem like a burden or a chore, something I definitely didn't want on this particular jaunt across the pond.

But, while I was on the Megabus back from Leeds the other day, I had a lightbulb moment. Suddenly a whole project unfurled in my mind like a time-lapsed flower, and by the time I got back to London I had ironed out most of the kinks. I'm VERY excited about it: I think it's just the sort of thing I've been looking for. Even if I follow though with it the project won't be up and running for a long time yet, so I won't say too much now. Anyway, the point of this post is not the project plug, but the moment behind it.

Eureka means, literally, "I have found." Archimedes was searching for the solution to a specific problem (having been tasked by the King of Syracuse to determine if a crown was solid gold or of cheaper construction) before he got in the water. He was so pleased that he went running in the nuddy-pants through the streets, although in my opinion, he was probably more chuffed with the invention of hydrostatics than solving the specific puzzle.

Some good ideas may come, seemingly, out of nowhere. Occasionally, looking at a natural phenomenon or situation might lead you to consider a problem, a question, that you might otherwise never have realised existed. The apocryphal 'Newton and Apple' story is a good example, at least conceptually (again, I'm pretty sure it didn't take an apple falling on his head to make possibly the greatest scientific mind ever consider why stuff falls down).

But my point is that in order to find a solution, you have first to find the problem. I'm pretty chuffed with my good idea, partly because I think it really does have legs, but mostly because I'm just glad to have had it in the first place. It gives me a sense of my own potential, something that had been a bit thin on the ground lately.

I know there are people out there who think themselves capable of at least one big idea, and I agree with them. I bang on all the time on this blog about the individual's ability to take charge of their own life. But here's the kicker: inspiration is not like the particles in a Pratchett novel. It will only come if you make the conditions right.

Maybe you should start hanging out in coffee houses more. Perhaps you should spend more time in scientific institutions. I know you oughta start drinking less booze. But whatever you do, you need to set yourself a problem, a set of parameters, first. Like Archimedes, you'll find only what you look for.

Inspiration is more like a forest fire than a single flash of lightning. The lightning is just the start: you have to ready to burn.