I have been thinking about this topic (soul vs skill) for some time now, and was not able to advance on it. The other day, however, I made another go at it and this is what transpired.
Throughout most of my professional life, I have been passionate about what I did, be it when I did engineering work, or corporate type work or consulting. There have been times when I just went through the motion without any excitement, but generally my professional motivation has been passion-driven.
The perfect harmony is of course a passion-driven work carried out skillfully, which we call a master-piece. Generally, this combination of passion and skill is typical of artwork, design, architecture and a slew of artistic professions. But what about things like accounting, assembly line work, and a slew of industrial and service work?
A little while ago I read that ‘to put your soul into your work, it's important to have a clear purpose and to be deeply invested in what you are creating’. Ahhh, finally the word I wanted to see on this topic: ‘purpose’. For many professions, the purpose is almost automatic; for example, an artist wants to communicate her/his vision through her/his work, a doctor’s purpose is to heal people, and so on and so on. By the way, I don’t know if it has been publicly said or not, I see Elon Musk’s purpose to be to change the world! The logic then follows that the sense of purpose leads to passion in the work, which combined with skill, produces the output sought by the producer/professional (I would rather call him/her craftsman).
One could, of course, not have a purpose, or have a purpose that does not manifest itself through one’s work. In this case the work becomes an application of a set of skills to make a living and the passion flows elsewhere to satisfy the purpose.
As I was thinking more and more about this topic, I realized that the pandemic and the digitization of the world, have brought our society to a different level: a society in which a large part of the western population no loger puts its passion into his/her work. People have become mercenaries of skill in the service of others.
Hmmm, why not. Maybe this is better than what we have been doing since the end of the second world war. Let’s reconvene in 70 years and evaluate the situation!!!!!
Paris, January 23, 2023,
Zeejay