Discovery vs Mastery

For the third year in a row I made a trip to Whitney Portal at the base of Mt. Whitney for my birthday.

We stopped on the way back from a two day road trip to Mammoth Lakes, where we explored crystal clear lakes, alpine forests, a legit ghost town, and put our feet into hot springs.

I’ve said this here before but I always thought I was an ocean guy until I spent some time in the mountains in Montana. Being in the presence of something so massive hollows out an equal size open space in my soul. It’s the closest thing I have to a religious experience these days.

I’ve taken thousands of pictures of Ellie. This is my favorite.

Whitney Portal has become something of a reset button, or a respawn point. There are waterfalls and ponds and deer wandering through, and on clear days you can lay your eyes on the tallest peak in the lower forty-eight. I always come back inspired and ready to get back to life and work in the city.

One day, while we were up resting in the hotel, Julie and Ellie booth took a nap. Julie was in the bed and I was sitting on the couch with Ellie. I realized (too late) that I didn’t have my phone, laptop, journal, or book in hand. I didn’t want to move because Ellie was sleeping so peacefully up against me so I just sat there with my thoughts for a solid hour.

While I was sitting there I thought about a phrase I heard a couple of weeks earlier at the performance for my niece Macy’s summer dance intensive with LA Contemporary Dance Company. The director of the company gave a speech at the beginning of the presentation where she said that their mantra over the two week workshop was, “Discovery over mastery.”

The goal wasn’t to perfect a skill. It wasn’t about getting the moves right. It was about learning new things and getting out of your comfort zone.

To me, the word “mastery” conjures up images of someone (usually an older man with a grey beard) working diligently in a spartan workshop, repeating a process or procedure over and over again until they can finally get it right every time, at will.

The word “discovery” conjures up images of tall ships crashing through rogue waves, cutting through thick vines in a jungle, and descending into dark and dangerous tunnels with only a single lantern to guide the way.

Mastery makes me think of eyes cast down, focused on the tool or task at hand.

Discovery makes me think eyes on the horizon. Searching, seeking.

Mastery makes me think of removing rough edges, blemishes, and mistakes.

Discovery makes me think about seeing mistakes as opportunities to go somewhere new.

I love learning from the masters. I love breaking down what they did and trying to figure out why it worked on me. I practice tried and true techniques so that I can hopefully pull those tools out of the box when I need them.

But I also have a compulsive need to push through to new ideas and new ways of working. Some of my favorite artists did their best work before the age of 30. They were still in beginner’s mind, unencumbered by what they didn’t know.

I realized that I’m always subconsciously pursuing one or the other.

It reminded me of the Emerson quote, “The voyage of the best ship is a zig zag line of a hundred tacks.”

You only see that line after the fact, with some time and distance. When we’re in the thick of it, whether that’s a specific project, a career, or just life, it’s wrapped up into one big thing. I can go weeks of working without any intention other than, “I have to come up with/write/finish these certain pieces.”

It’s an easy way to get stuck or burned out.

On Sunday I did a zoom Q&A for The Appalachian Film Festival in Huntington, WV. My friend Dave Lavender was the moderator and he asked me what I do to stay creative and inspired in tough times, like right now.

I talked about morning pages and always keeping notebooks handy, keeping the channel open, etc. I wish I’d remembered this concept because it’s a great way to get unstuck.

No matter where you are in your life/career/project, you can prioritize discovery or mastery and move with intention.

If you make a conscious decision to go into discovery mode you can try a new medium or genre, you can write a poem, pick up an instrument, or try any of the myriad ways of introducing some new element into your process.

If you want to go into mastery mode you can pick one specific skill or area of expertise and follow that rabbit hole as far as it will take you. When I started my revision process for the novel I read the first page of every book I could get my hands on and picked up half dozen of them multiple times just to study the very first line.

Whichever pursuit you prioritize you will ultimately be moving forward, tacking one way or the other. Both will have a positive impact when you come back to the other.

This dovetails into one of the other things I was thinking about as I was sitting on the couch that day. I looked at my own creative process in four stages, which helped me see where prioritizing discovery and mastery might be more helpful.

1. Light Work - This is the part where I come up with new ideas, brainstorming, connecting dots, keeping myself in a state of play, taking in a lot of new stimuli. This seems like the right place to prioritize discovery. For me, making the decision to write a book was planning an expedition into unknown territory. I had prioritized discovery.

2. Heavy Work - Now I have to get the whole thing up on its feet in the form of a finished draft. This is the hardest part for me, no matter if it’s a play, a screenplay, a pilot, or a book. It takes a lot of time. This is where most of the self-doubt and impostor syndrome kicks in. Because of that, it helps to have tools I’ve picked up in pursuit of mastery, like diagnosing structure, or tracking a character’s emotional arc. And yet… I’m still keeping one eye on the horizon. I’m using a combination of both in this stage.

3. Deep Work - Writing and revising. I try to deepen the emotional experience for the reader/audience member, pull out the themes, shift the the tectonic plates so that things snap into place and moments have the impact I’m hoping for. This is a stage where having some level of mastery can be incredibly helpful. Discoveries can happen but they are not the priority. I just want to make it the best it can be.

4. Light Work - Finally, I’m back to the fun stuff. Now that it exists and the major issues have been worked out, now that I feel good about the piece as a whole, I look for the grace notes. What can I do now to surprise myself and hopefully the reader/audience? Was there something underneath that I wasn’t aware of?

When we got back home from our trip I watched a ton of videos of people hiking Mt. Whitney. It’s something I would love to do in the next couple of years.

I know that it’s going to be incredibly difficult. There are going to be times when I just want to quit and turn around, when I doubt whether or not I’ll be able to pull it off. I also know that when I get to the top I’ll feel an enormous sense of accomplishment. The views will be otherworldly.

And, maybe that’s why Whitney Portal has become my reset button. I can see the perfect metaphor for the work/ year rising high above me. I’m at the bottom, in the little green slice of paradise that represents inspiration and unbounded potential. That’s the spot where you can’t help but dream of climbing to the top. The light work.

It’s funny, I’ve been thinking about that term, “light work,” for the past couple of weeks. It just occurred to me that the word “light” has a double meaning in this context. I was thinking of it in the sense that there’s less burden at that early stage. But it’s also the stage where you let in the light of inspiration.

You become illuminated.

It’s where, as we say, “The light bulb goes off.”

Right now, I’m in the deep work stage of the novel. Every day I wake up thinking of ways to make it better, deeper, more fun, and engaging. I have been tacking between prioritizing discovery and prioritizing mastery.

Wherever you are in your journey, whatever stage you find yourself in with your own creative project, I hope you are having a grand adventure as well.

If you’re feeling stuck, spend a day tacking with intention toward discovery or mastery.

Put your eyes on the horizon, point your sail through the wind.

Keep moving forward.

The reset button.

If you’re interested in pursuing mastery of screenwriting this week check out this excellent deep dive into Act Two on this Writer's Panel episode with Tom Vaughan.

Lastly, I wanted to show you one of the gifts I got for myself. I have been reading up on these Traveler’s Company notebooks for months and finally decided to get one. There are different covers (I got the leather) and you can buy notebook inserts in various styles like ruled, blank, dot grid, etc.

They’re slim, customizable, and well-crafted. In addition to the notebook and refills I bought a clip that helps ensure that there will always be a pen attached and a clear plastic pocket folder to stash notes and things in.

I love it.

It took me a little time to get used to the narrow width, but once I did it was a pleasure to carry around and work with. You can check them out here!

Birthday card from Julie, stickers from Laidback Country Picker

That’s it for now, hope you have a great weekend!