Inspired by work and writings of John Cage and Rebecca Solnit
How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control. To calculate on the unforeseen is perhaps exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us.
This passage is from one of my favorite writers and favorite books on the creative process, Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost (5). In a series of beautiful essays Solnit evokes, meditates upon, and illustrates the experience of being lost and its relationship to creation, transformation, shapeshifting, or simply making one’s way forward each day.
This question of Solnit—How do you calculate upon the unforeseen?—is one I love chewing on and I have returned to time-and-again since I first read Solnit’s book in 2014. It is a question inspired, Solnit writes, by a declaration of Edgar Allen Poe that “all experience, in matters of philosophical discovery, teaches us that, in such discovery, it is the unforeseen upon which we must calculate most largely” (5).
In this #creativeleadership post I want to reflect a bit on the inevitability, the purpose, the lessons, the possibilities, and the power of the unforeseen. While the unforeseen is something that many of us might like to avoid (I’m now thinking of any number of cataclysms of the past 5 years), artists (in the main) seem to dance with the unforeseen, draw it out, seek it out, and sense it long before others. Across a range of disciplines, one might even conceptualize the creation process that many artists engage as they make new works as a pathway to the unforeseen.
One of the forebears and exemplars of “collaborating with chance,” as Solnit puts it, was the composer and music theorist John Cage. Over winter break I re-read Kay Larson’s fantastic biography Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism and the Inner Life of Artists as a handful of students in the MA Creative Leadership at MCAD were keen to engage with it. The book is largely an exploration of the influence of Zen Buddhism, including the writings and talks of seminal first carriers of Buddhism to the United States (such as D.T. Suzuki), on Cage’s life and work.
In this second reading I made the connection between Solnit’s “pathways to the unforeseen” and Cage’s principle of indeterminacy. Larson describes indeterminacy and encapsulates Cage’s use of it, writing:
Indeterminacy means, literally: not fixed, not settled, uncertain, indefinite. It means that you don’t know where you are. How can it be otherwise, say the Buddhist teachings, since you have no fixed or inherent identity and are ceaselessly in process?
Inspired by Suzuki’s class, Cage had been exploring ways to write music that was indeterminate both in original intention and in outcome. By using methods of divination (his favorite was the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes) Cage could write music with the help of chance. In that way, he could begin with an intention and open it up to the unpredictable. The next step was to write music that obliged the performers to make some of their own choices.
Larson, Where the Hear Beats, 19-20
Cage characterized his work as an experience “the outcome of which is not foreseen” identified with “no matter what eventuality” (Larson, 348). He adopted the use of the I Ching as a method in large part to remove himself (his ego) from the decision-making process with new works. While he quite often set up elaborate constraints or rules in advance of rolling the I Ching, ultimately the work that emerged was the outcome of chance.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that all artists work by a principle or process of indeterminacy, the capacity to work in such a way (moving towards the unknown, allowing chance events to influence the work, beginning without a plan or articulated end in sight) does seem to be common among many artists.
Within the frame of organizational processes, I would argue that the opposite of indeterminacy is strategy. What do I mean by strategy? Michael Porter describes it as the big picture of how the organization is going to win in its environment, whatever that is. Put another way, how will you achieve competitive advantage (deliver a distinctive value proposition) given known and unanticipated threats and opportunities?
Since Porter’s initial formulation, and in response to uncertainty and continual disruptions and therefore the difficulty of engaging in long-term strategic planning we have witnessed the turn towards adaptive strategy. While applied to business it grew out of software development and, akin to the scientific process, involves hypothesizing, experimenting, and adjusting as necessary. In other words, try-out short-term strategies and adapt as you need to in pursuit of your longer-term goals.
Lately, the concept of emergent strategy (first coined by Henry Mintzberg but of late most associated with adrienne maree brown) has been gaining ground. Emergent strategy (as it sounds) is not deliberate and does not involve planning. It is developed in response to fluid or unforeseen circumstances (like, say, a pandemic). I am a big fan of brown’s book.
What I have been wondering since re-reading Larson’s book on Cage is whether, to prepare ourselves for a future that we anticipate will be radically different, humans and businesses alike would benefit, at times, from adopting a strategy of indeterminacy. By that I mean an embrace of processes that will by necessity and with intention ensure that we arrive at destinations we cannot imagine, much less describe.
What might a strategy of indeterminacy—a process for putting our organizations on a pathway to the unforeseen–look like? I work at a college running a master’s program. I spent a bit of time lightly pondering this possibility within that general context and came up with a few ideas:
Idea #1 – Wild Card Courses
What if my program annually scheduled a wild card course—a course that would never be logically included in the program. Moreover, what if that course was determined in part by chance? Each year someone would roll the dice to select one of X possible courses. Here are 10 courses that I would never strategically build into the program I currently direct (all but #10 inspired by headlines I’ve noticed recently):
- Tomorrows Deities, Doctrines, & Denominations: What is the Future of Religions?
- Whither Water and Wastewater?
- The New Canary in the Coalmine? Autonomous Mobile Robots & Workplace Hazards
- Building and Using a Vertical Hydroponic System to Grow Vegetation
- Gene Therapy: Risks, Rewards & Quandaries
- Gun Control Policies in China and the US
- GIS Data: Applications in Business, Social Change, and Everyday Life
- Climate-friendly Eating
- Frontiers in Animal Science: Ethics, Economics, and Environmental Sustainability
- Woodcarving
Another idea could be to create a campus-wide course whose content is determined by whomever shows up for it and their interests. No syllabus. No plan. No clear outcomes. It simply emerges in response to the questions, curiosities, and goals of the individuals that come to form the course ensemble.
Idea #2: An admission lottery system
This is not a new idea as admission lotteries already exist; but they are a great example of an indeterminate strategy. Lotteries are already used in Charter schools and some public high schools (in NYC, e.g.). Some institutions of higher learning also use them for incredibly competitive programs. But what if they were adopted at most colleges and universities?
Idea #3: Where’s the College President?
What if every day the president of the college used a random outcome generator to select a spot on campus where he/she/they would set up a laptop and work for two hours?
What would be the outcome of these actions? No one knows; and that is the beauty of them.
I’m by no means suggesting we toss aside strategy in favor of indeterminacy; but I believe there are lessons in the ways that John Cage approached the creation of work and, in particular, engaged processes that enabled him to extend real and imagined boundaries, encounter the unknown, and make what could not have been imagined in advance of the making.
Given widespread recognition of the need to find radically new and beautiful alternatives to many of the ways of being, doing, and knowing that we embraced throughout the 20th century—new ways of relating to the natural world, to ourselves, to each other, to work, to learning, to organizing, to healing, to sustaining ourselves, etc.—it is perhaps worth asking whether we could benefit from engaging creative processes and practices that are, essentially, pathways to the unforeseen.
I’ll leave you with a quote from a talk with Brian Eno and Donna Gratis on the arts’ role in tackling climate change that I attended today.
Surrender is a valuable thing to do. … A lot of our problems come from an excess of control and an absence of surrender.
Brian Eno
What do you think? And have you seen examples of strategic indeterminacy? Or do you have thoughts on how to apply the idea? I’d love to hear from you.
This kind of thinking is what first drew me to arts administration, the possibility of attracting, learning from and including many disciplines. In my view, this challenges us to work like artists, thinking up problems and finding ways to solve them. This expansive, risk-raking view is just what we need in a time when the world and our places in it, have changed. Thanks to Diane for helping us think, then hopefully do.
Joan, thank you so much for taking the time to read and reflect. Hope you are well!
Diane, thank you for writing and posting this and I’m wishing you a great recovery.
I’ve been attempting to inch my way into the quantum—letting go of ego and outcome and much more—to be more comfortable in the unknown. After reading your essay and pondering experiences over the years with brilliant artists, I have to agree that many many artists have a keen relationship with the unknown or unforeseen that would be illuminating to a chaotic world (meaning human beings), if the world would open to them.
Vickie,
Thank you for the warm wishes and for taking the time to read and post. I love your image of inching your way into the quantum. Much of this program, which is about collective leadership for change at its heart, is requiring all of us to work with ego and tendencies to drive self and others to outcomes. This is not easy work. Let’s keep working toward opening up the world to artists … And now that I am back in MN I would love to get together for a coffee or meal in person.
D
I don’t think this is a tough sell to many of us in the arts as we learn to “yes, and” to most of the artistic (and professional and economic ) challenges that come our way. If we don’t, we tend to drop out of the arts as it becomes too stressful.
On an academic level, however, I see ideas such as these likely only offered to those of privilege. At the lower ends of the academic scale (community colleges, for example) the business model reigns supreme and nothing will likely convince a board of directors who face declining enrollment and fear of not attracting students to “job prep” type classes to take risks on the curriculum as you suggest.
Yet I would also argue that these very students at the lower ends of the economic/academic spectrum need exposure to these types of ideas and risk-taking more than almost any other sub-set of students. They view themselves as academic customers only and have little exposure to a “life of the mind” argument. I certainly do my best on a personal level to expand this type of acceptance of the unknown into my teaching, but I only have so much room to maneuver.
Btw, on a very personal level, I have found Ann Weiser Cornell’s “The Radical Acceptance of Everything” to be life-changing.
Hope you’re well, Diane
Marge
Margaret,
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment and for the warm wishes for my recovery. I am doing well! I am also quite grateful for the book rec, which looks terrific. Your reflections are spot on and really point to the work to be done. When I read the Natalie Loveless book How to Make Art at the End of the World it reinforced the extent to which the knowledge (ways of being, doing, knowing) of artists are not valued (or valued sporadically or only on a surface level or only in quite limited contexts) outside of the conservatory and some liberal arts disciplines. The focus on job placement is understandable given the cost of education; and yet, what artists are doing would be so valuable for all humans, starting in kindergarten and into adulthood. As a friend and I were discussing the other day, “Why do we put kids in a gym and have them play kickball rather than teaching them yoga, or dance, or Laban, etc?” Finding the spaciousness as a faculty member inside a system that is oriented towards job placement is tough. I have no doubt you are bringing this to your students in a brilliant way. Thank you again for weighing in. So great to hear your reflections.
D xx
Hi- am listening to the audiobook, “Underland by Robert MacFarlane. His descriptions of the Underworld as natural reality and the experience of physics, geology, myth, literature, memory— traveling through “deep time”. I was struck by his exploration of what lies below the surface of place and mind, directly through caving expeditions, stories of descents into the earth, darkness, claustrophobia. It’s such a treat listening to him describing carboniferous limestone hills. I wonder what could be provoked if an entire college read this book and met as a classes to ponder “The Underland “ in Deep Space/Dark Matter/Drift to visualize, design, scupt, paint, mould, problem-solve, develop, novel ways to connect to our dark unknowable land below the ground.
I also remember my favorite scene from the film, Apollo Thirteen, when the NASA engineers devised a method for fitting “a square peg in a round hole” so the astronauts could return safely. The problem solving under pressure on Earth to save the Apollo 13 mission. In outer space. Just some “Strategic/Indeterminacy” examples, inspiration for action.
Hope your MA program is going well. Caroline Elizabeth Savage, MFA
Currently, I am teaching Strategic Planning in the Global Arts Administration M.A. Program, Rowan University.
Your writing is so provocative and reassuring. I edited my films using chance in my making and editing. I am a fan of Alan Watts whose audio programs explore Buddhist thought.
Caroline!
Thanks so much for reading and sharing reflections. I am compelled by your idea to have an entire college read The Underland and then visualize, design, sculpt, etc. novel says to connect the unknowable depths. And, yes, the Apollo Thirteen MacGyver moment is a great example of Strategic/Indeterminacy in action (and under time pressure). I was also thinking about another example. Many years ago now, when I was at Mellon Fdn, there was a program called the Center for Creative Research (run by the late Sam Miller and Dana Whitco) that would embed movement-based artists on college campuses for extended (multi-year) residencies with no plans or definable objectives at the start. Once there they would intersect with the campus and students and faculty; and something inspired would eventually emerge. And that something was never anything anyone would have predicted or planned for at the outset.
Also, I’m deeply interested to see your films now that I know your used chance in the making and editing.If you have not read Kay Larson’s book I really think you would value it. And Alan Watts makes an appearance.
I am now inspired to read or listen to MacFarlane’s book. Thanks for the beautiful reflections, kind words, and for taking the time to engage with the post.
Diane
Diane, thank you for opening up this applicable way of thinking and doing. And it’s always worth being reminded of the most original John Cage, who said, “begin anywhere.”
Hi Ella!
Thanks so much for taking the time to read and engage with the post.
Thank you for reminding me of “Begin anywhere.”
I hope you are well!
Warmly,
Diane
Thanks Dianne
Compelled and confused! (Not for the first time, and not entirely because of your words, but somewhat because of them.)
Being in uncertainty, one might hope, fuels creativity. Predictably, “definiteness”, conviction, boundaries…a plan, are all comforting words for a strategy die-hard like myself. Moving towards ‘surrender’ and bringing these two ideas (indeterminacy and strategy) together, presents quite the challenge for me.
Your writing is timely as I ponder the ‘plan’ VS ‘let it go’ debate (something that’s been simmering for me since exploring 4000 Weeks on your recommendation).
Heading towards 60, the concept of finitude has recently become a much more stark reality.
And with that comes a more pressing consideration of priorities. And with that, a sense of wanting to plan in order to make the most of the next (hopefully) 20-30 years.
Covey’s ‘begin with the end in mind’ and Drucker’s ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’ turn up the heat on that simmering debate in my head.
Balancing productivity with indeterminacy…outcomes with exploration…financial sustainability with purpose…security with adventure….has become a question that now permeates my thoughts on career, management, leadership, learning travel, personal and professional relationships, and identity.
Prior to the release this week of Australia’s first National Cultural Policy (in more years than I care to remember) I pondered the openness of having no policy, and the northern star provided by having one.
You’ve now made me wonder if indeterminacy IS a strategy – moving forward with the possibility of….
The debate inside my head continues.
Thanks for sharing your thinking.
Rick
Love this line of thinking, Diane! Although I also wonder about the many small, safe-to-fail ways you could explore randomness in an academic setting (your list included mostly high-effort, high-cost, high-risk options).
For example, instead of offering a full wildcard class, you could hold 20 minutes of EVERY class session for randomly-derived discussion topics. A randomly-timed sound during class could signal everyone to stand up and move to a different part of the room.
I also wonder about flipping your script. Framing the work as “creating pathways to the unforeseen” reinforces a directional and navigational metaphor that doesn’t quite fit. The unforeseen is everywhere. It doesn’t require a pathway. The challenge is in our reaction and relationship to the unforeseen.
Perhaps another way to describe it is around opening conversation or inquiry, lowering expectations of efforts toward certainty, and other threads that you engage in this post.
Thanks for the provocation!