James Surwillo
Aug 23, 2017 · 5 min read

What I learned Writing a Book

I spent years collecting what I believed to be the wisest of knowledge recorded by anyone at any time and put it in a book with a modicum of coherence to the present. Why did I spend chapters summarizing classifications of perceptions and actions of the world? I wanted to write a “Business Book” that caught all of the abstractions of the human psyche often overlooked. It should have accounted for the time and space of the modern human but still give the timeless representations of human nature. That’s right, I wrote a “Business Book” (leadership at least) that rarely talks about business. In my opinion, a business book about the science of business is glib, dull, and impersonal. We eat our “Econ, Accounting, and Finance 101” vegetables in college, by starting a small business, or any introduction into a management position. The science of business is not a book you want to read for fun and it certainly will not get you that next promotion. If you accentuate the art of business it leads to an author ultimately retelling a set of values, curiously similar to their own, to be successful. I would be more likely to buy a book in this sub-genre, but I would still be critical.

Someone giving quotes and anecdotes about great leadership accomplishments is great. Someone retelling their lore of accomplishment and triumph to spur motivation is great. There is, however, one problem. You are not them! They may have concocted a winning formula based on their experience. They probably offer a lot of truth, much which makes very rational sense and even appeals to our emotions at times. It seems, however, that humans simultaneously evolved and mutated to gain consciousness individually based on our genetics. So now we drop individual personality into the equation of time, location, and circumstance and Heraclitus’ idea 2500 years ago that we can’t step into the same river twice, based on modern science, seems to be a pretty reliable truth. In other words, the “Leadership Industry” is filled with many very smart, interesting, successful, and well-meaning people. These people could have a very direct path and method to increase your productivity, value, and meaning in your life. To me though, the art was too shallow and the science was too mundane. I needed to create a Nietzschean version of the connection of work to our lives. It was something vast and transcendent but also true and unprovable.

Art always leads to subjectivity as science is “supposed” to lead to objectivity. Leadership is nothing but art because it exactly involves humanity. The primordial motivator of humanity is way less cold and rational than we give it credit. Behaviorism, productivity, and efficiency are not our driving forces. Perception and judgement define the exact mechanisms which color our world view and make us actors on a stage auditioning for our next part. Will I be prepared? Will I be chosen? Will I be loved? Will I be remembered? It just seems to me, as intuitionist rather than empiricist, that these are much healthier contemplations to consume your subconscious when you lay your head on the pillow. Instead we would choose to make value judgements, based not upon our personal experience, but the insights of a stranger, which we try to map as our own. We become reliant on the messenger and her message, not on our goal and experiences. Now, we are damned to decide between the inconsequential truths of the science of business or the very real subjective of the perception of the impostor. This is a hard pill to swallow but that is what makes us human.

Perhaps that is why I began my book explaining the subjective dive that humanity has taken over the last century. Is that good or bad? I don’t know and neither does anyone else. We have progressed and receded. Plenty of eloquent writers could make the case either way and I bet under different circumstances I would try. My point is that the truth of the argument does not matter? Why? Because the only truth that matters is the way people act. The subjective dive of humanity (represented best by the postmodern era) has and assuredly will have an effect on culture in the future, which will inevitably have an effect on business. If the pace of culture follows the trajectory of the pace of technology, which it absolutely does, then we are moving faster than we ever have before. So even if we could perfectly align time, place, circumstance and individual values . . . so what? To make a lasting change as a leader, unless we have an uncanny intellect and intuition, we would need to predict the future. The science of quantum mechanics told us that was impossible a century ago. In it’s place, can’t we use art, in the form of generational theory, futurology, and big data, to come to the conclusion that things are and will be different in the future? Is there a discernible way to attempt to predict the leadership values, across the spectrum of culture, that will benefit us as individuals over the next decade? To even begin to contemplate that possibility we would need to go back in time. This is the question at the crux of every business book never answered. How do I predict the environment where I, as an individual, need to be successful? Wouldn’t it be great to get a few years of a head start based on the wisdom of the past? That is what “Metamodern Leadership” investigates.

Culture has changed but human evolution is way behind the pace of technology. So we forget that everything learned and implemented was based on mythological truths across time. Of course, if we delve into religion we become divided. Religion, in its simplest and truest form is just a creation myth and a hero’s journey in which we constantly update in culture. The science of Christianity, which seems to have won the mythic battles of ideas in western culture for two millennia, lost to the scrutiny of modern science. That’s why it has been nearly a century and a half since Nietzsche exclaimed the “God is dead”. Yes, we have the die-hard believers, the Sunday morning Catholics, the Easter Lutherans, the non-institutionalists, the agnostics, and the atheists but we still have the doubt because the absolute is unknowable to humanity. Temporality and subjectivity of the individual is in direct conflict with the absolute, which is why we have a natural reverence for the infinite in the first place. Geez . . . how did I get from writing a book about finding the skills to get to my next job to support my family to the creation of humanity? Do they have anything in common? My answer- from Heraclitus to Heidegger is yes . . . but I can’t prove it. If anyone says they can then take heed. There is plenty to believe in and plenty to be critical of . . . the goal is to incorporate the wisest mythos that stands the test of time. Our job as humans is to slowly update that criterion and build it within ourselves.

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James Surwillo

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Leadership, Ancient Wisdom, and the Metamodern World. Jamessurwillo.com