“People are like dice. We throw ourselves in the direction of our own choosing.”
- Jean-Paul Sartre
I had a thought experiment recently. Not as paradigm shifting as any of Einstein’s but, well, food for thought – for me. I imagined myself teaching a class of children for a lesson and deciding that we’d do something a bit different, something that might change their understanding of their potential or the nature of reality. You know, the small stuff.
The ‘experiment within the experiment’ was for each child to throw a pair of dice together and I’d write the outcomes beside their names on a blackboard.
Of course, there was a range of outcomes from double six to double one and various permutations in between. I imagined that the boy who rolled a double six considered himself the winner (he was a boy in my imagination) and a girl who rolled a two-and-a-one (again, it’s what I saw) felt disappointed.
I then explained to them that any outcomes – assuming a balanced pair of dice and similar throwing techniques (i.e. no cheating) – had an equal probability of occurring. Any significance in a particular score was in the eye of the beholder, unless rules had been agreed beforehand (which wasn’t the case). We then, as a class, tried to work out (sometimes elaborate) rules whereby each pair of dice scores could be declared the winner.
For example, a double one would win lowest score; a two and a one would win ‘lowest dice throw combinations where one die score is twice that of the other’. The skill lay in coming up with a meaningful – for them – rule that celebrated their random dice throws.
In my imagination each of the children found, or were helped to find, a rule whereby they were the winner/s.
How does this relate to creativity, writing or the freelancing business?
Good question.
Often, especially when it comes to creativity, we do something first and then decide if it was successful afterwards without identifying measures beforehand. Usually it’s based more on whether we like the outcome than any other benchmark.
But we decide. And success or failure, however we define them, happens because of the confluence of a lot of factors: timing, who sees it and the extent of their influence, luck, who or what else we’re competing with, etc.
Attitude is a huge factor as well because it may influence how we interpret our experience. In my thought experiment I imagined each of those children feeling like a winner and recognising, perhaps fleetingly, that they can all be winners when they see outcomes in a way that means something positive to them.
What about the world and objective success?
What’s our yardstick? If we’re not starving, being bombed or having our freedom of speech curtailed, that feels like a win. If we have a roof over our heads and the opportunity to be creative or run a business, that feels like a win to me.
Yes, the cynics will sneer, but what about hard currency from our professions – in pounds, dollars, and euros. (Okay, for LinkedIn as well, crypto too.) You’d need to bring in other factors like education, your product or service, your target audience, and your understanding of – and position in – the marketplace. Plus budget, your network, your ability to sell, and whether you have a convincing story.
But it all starts from somewhere and I believe it’s not the roll of the dice so much as the decision to roll those dice and what you make of the outcomes.*
* For clarity, not every business will be financially sustainable, nor every work of art appreciated and suitably rewarded. I get that. If what you’re doing isn’t working, do something about it or do something else.
