Lessons from a 20 000 year old painting
A pilgrimage home is a powerful exercise in challenging and validating personal growth. Having moved to Portugal in August 2021 I went back to Zimbabwe in January 2022 with a mind that was and is experiencing a transformation that has continued to expand with the help of Design Thinking.
Knowing the way, I see the world is shifting inspired me to begin a series of self-reflection that will entail another expedition to a remote location in the wilderness in June 2022. My experience in Portugal has triggered an exploration of the old me in relation to the emerging me. In this exploration I am not abandoning who I was but building on it hopefully to find a better entrepreneur and better person.
The perfect backdrop to do this type of reflection was to go back in history. I went to visit two national parks and spent some time in nature and got to touch an elephant and see some lions. I was particularly struck by the rock art that is famous in Zimbabwe. The art is a window into the past that can help orientate us in the present and chart a path into the future. These prehistoric paintings are unique in the world with the oldest in the country dating back 20,000 years. The paints may seem simple but are filled with complexity.
Much like Design Thinking these paintings are people centric in every way. The stories told about these people have survived thousands of years. I am curious to whether I can define a problem and solution and have it expressed so clearly that a thousand years from now someone will be able to resonate with the message and narrative. If I can do that, I would have found the core of a meaningful problem and provided a solution that’s universal. I think the rock paintings relevance and message persists because the stories told are centred around the way people live, what is important to them, how they perceive themselves and how they perceive the world around them.
At the time of my visit to the national parks, design thinking was not part of my reflection. I was more interested in juxtaposing my evolving ideas around impact and building successful for-profit organisations. In doing so I acknowledged that good ideas and enduring and important impact come in different forms. At the same time seemingly, unrelated pursuits or stimuli weave together to provide solutions for the future.
Looking at the rock paintings I found myself trying to empathise and imagine what the artist was thinking all those years ago. Do we understanding the message and what else is said in the art that we are missing? I came to rest on a point of view that our ancestors were just as complex as people are today and assuming ourselves smarter or able to fully grasp the emotions and thoughts, they had in a series of painting would be naïve. From a design thinking perspective this makes me appreciate the process of unbiased and open observation and engagement with people. When we allow ourselves to engage with as many ideas as possible and embrace divergent thinking around a problem, we get to see more possibilities. People are complex and through their eyes is how we see what’s important to them whether it’s an antelope that provides food and fur and one day becomes a totem or it’s a new function on an app that allows family members to group video-call across the world. We need to pay attention to what matters to the narrator, the problems they have in that space and only from there can we iterate and try out solutions made to fit.
