Introducing Master Jacques
--- ⌛ Estimated reading time: a decent mug of your favourite brew ---
A blog of sorts
'Master J' (shorthand for 'Master Jacques') is a blog that combines verses, essays and research pieces about different ways of appreciating and nurturing excellence and meaning in the day to day.
This blog is a firebird of former blog iterations that eventually ran out of digital steam. The various articles and creations will partly pull from, and build on, previous articles and musings that somehow remain available on the webosphere to this day. Please bear with me while all this comes into (inter)being on this eponymous platform.
Besides introducing the blog, this article explores what mastery might mean from different perspectives, as an introduction to the topics and formats I want to explore on this 'bear blog' platform. I often cite relevant references at the end of each piece.
An incongruous feat?
The curse has long been proverbial: becoming a "Jack of all trades, and master of none" conveys the notion that being sort-of-good at many things means spreading yourself thin and missing out on mastery of any sort.
For centuries, gaining professional mastery may have signalled the difference between reliance on potentially oppressive institutions (for example the pauper's 'workhouse' or ruthless employers) and the ability to make a half-decent living. (Hyper-)Specialisation remains perhaps synonymous with the industrial revolution and highly competitive jobs markets. This praise of specialism may contrast with more recent advice for knowledge workers to become so-called 'T-shaped' workers who can branch out more broadly from a niche area of expertise. The t-shaped orchestrator seems to be an increasingly popular career prompt in the age of agentic minions and 'Despicable Me' animated film sequels.
Concerning what to specialise in (as in the stem '|' in the letter 'T'), young people have often been urged in decades past to find their calling -- i.e. something they are passionate about, or a profession they are somehow destined to become. Many pragmatists like Cal Newport, however, argue that 'find your calling' is increasingly at odds with what really works, not to mention learning institutions that necessarily deliver work readiness. The rising threshold for gaining compelling competency also prevents too many enterprising youth and those pivoting careers from landing formative, passion-building experiences. The agentic minions seem to be eating entry level jobs across the planet, echoing with what tech angel investor Marc Andreesen had provocatively concerning "software eating the world".\ As a result, is mastery becoming a luxury for the asset-owning elites, the asset-managing classes, and the inheritocracy (as well as gen-AIngel investors)? It might depend on what counts as 'mastery', who does the counting, who decides what and who should fly or not, and whether puns remain an accepted commodity as they did during Woody Allen's younger days, even as humanities and arts departments are slashed at many universities.
The specialisation/generalisation debate still rages on in the post-industrial era, even as comparatively affluent societies have but displaced many of the industrial activities that underpin their absolute survival to comparatively less affluent societies, in what might be a somewhat fragile economic and spiritual balance. Many still say that being a jack of all trades cannot yield a competitive or 'unfair' advantage, be it at the level of individuals or corporations. Others argue instead that being a generalist is the most future-proof skill there is. Within the 'generalism' group, some proponents may even delegate common sense to the algorithmic powers that be, acting as so-called 'humans in the loop' (aka Gru and the Minion lab/factory in Despicable Me).
Yet individual trailblazers have made a rather singular though ordinary mark upon the earth by somehow redefining social conventions about livelihood and (life)style. For example, an illustrious community-focused individual was at once a paediatrician, general practitioner, parent, child and influential modern American poet. The film 'Paterson' by Jim Jarmusch engages with this singular doctor's eponymous long-form poem.
The hall of fame of 'T-shaped' or even 'O-shaped' professionals also includes people who pursue, or pivot to, the most ordinary trades, or even no trade or profession in particular. The recursive, landmark documentary 'In Search of Sugar Man' investigates the life of a talented musician-composer turned construction aid, who avoided the tragic fate of otherwise stubbornly specialist artists such as Nick Drake.
Therefore, kudos to all the shapeshifting craftspeople that continue to defy all logic or reason, and somehow seem to square the genial circle of mastery. But as always, the story we do hear is never the complete one. Mastery by any one individual always involves dependency on countless 'others', if only clients, sponsors, spouses, teachers, pets, farmers, street sweepers, and so on. Mastery comes in many shapes, forms and underpinning intentions.
But as alluded to above, mastery must increasingly take into consideration automation superpowers (and the seemingly overlapping force of the emotively-supercharged automotive powers that be).
And so, welcome to the machine (once again). Whatever you ask it, you will always be right, with plentiful contradictory evidence to boot. It can pretend to do anything you like, even when it can't. Solipsist nuance can be manufactured through mathematical optical illusions à la Escher, but can it be embodied? Opposites can both be true and attract each other in real life beyond all Boolean worldview. Not to mention that art is long, and life is short. And that the machine craves electricity like moths yearn for Light. There is no real shortcut, apart from short-circuits, where grey hair is always a sign of survivorship -- both electricians and creatives have to put in the ethical work to safeguard their productive capacity.
A prime philosophical exploration of technologically enabled mastery is the aptly named 'Puppet Master' in the landmark manga and anime 'Ghost in the Shell'. Likewise with 'replicants' (more accurately identified as 'andies' in the original) who can't afford to emigrate to outer star colonies and instead have to tend to electric sheep and lost-and-found mechanical frogs. An honourable mention also to singer Pris and her band and 'The Replicants', as well as her other youthful community-conscious colleagues, in the 1980s OVA anime 'Bubblegum Crisis', who are keen to bust the brazenly-named 'boomers' that threaten to destroy all that remains wholesome in a dystopian, cyberpunk version of Tokyo. So do mind the generational wealth gap and the inheritocracy trap! Perhaps a wealth tax is still overdue. Lest technological mastery should take an awfully wrong turn. Intention precedes mastery and is compounded by consistency. As they say in Swedish, "numerous rivulets do turn into a large river".
Många bäckar små gör en stor å
Or as the British supermarket chain Tesco would have it: "Every little helps!"
Beyond science fiction, masters in-the-making don't have to become puppets to a surreal world that is inherently uncontrollable, whilst still being able to hone in on their craft without harbouring excessive expectations. Be it as it may: as few or many afficionados may come to admire honest craftsmanship. A quality-assured following, however large or small, may itself shift the goal posts for at least some of the games people collectively play in the ambient self-preservation society, even if in very niche specialisms. Great mastery also does not have to be taken too seriously or adhered to perfectly, even where it excels above everything else. Learning Italian also remains optional to get the job done. From Studio Ghibli to the iPhone, quality has often been praised nearly universally, with all their obvious or hidden imperfections. The generative process is bound by the constraints of faintly approximated ideals and prosaic material considerations, and still find fruitful freedom and focus within that.
In the preliminary analysis, craftsmanship might be an inward quality, first and foremost. Inner transformation is perhaps the most world-changing wonder that the process of developing mastery can facilitate.
So mastery might still be possible, even today.
About Jacques
The Francophile declination of Master 'Jack' is, in the main, an intentionally unresolved pun that reflects my cultural background (not to say 'baggage'). The play on words does not translate back into the mother tongue. Jacques is also, in lesser part, a namesake reference to a mostly-unknown relative who seems to have done his best at imbuing the world with a sense of righteous dignity and higher ground. On the very topic of human dignity, as well as individual and collective sovereignty, Jacques would thoroughly enjoy reading Kazuo Ishiguro's novel 'The Remains of the Day'. Jacques is, at heart, a butler of none. At the same time, Jacques remains deeply grateful for the masters he did his best to serve despite decidedly unfavourable circumstances. On the proudly-lit pier of recollection, Jacques may acknowledge his own parallel fate in otherwise unsuspected peers.
Like 'Everyman', Master Jacques is a universal persona who has to grapple with what it means to be truly human. A budding craftsperson's search for embodied meaning matters all the more when common sense and timeless wisdom sometimes seem to be in rather short demand and/or supply. The aim of this blog is to convey the all-too-common (albeit always indeterminate) tale of Master Jacques in a somewhat less admonishing manner than the classic 15th century Everyman play. A teaser insight might be that the figurative Jacques can derive their moral trade neither from generalisation nor specialisation, nor from both simultaneously, above and beyond what anyone else might be tempted to say about them or their craft. Jacques' mastery should just speak for itself, in whatever shape or form it takes. Jacques may also resemble Paterson (i.e. the interwoven tapestry comprising the mythical character, the poem, the film, the city (NJ) and its great waterfalls, the doctor, the ex-Marine, the residents including the twins of all ages, and the frothy dance of life and death itself) in both a pragmatic and deeply allegorical notion state.
I, like countless others, still don't know what my singular (or plural-multiple) trade(s) might be. Some of the content on this blog might therefore provide an opportunity to explore and find out more what mastery and excellence might mean in different contexts.
Going further
So Good They Can't Ignore You - book by Cal Newport (2012) to get from the public library or your favourite bookshop. -- Also a useful discussion of the book on reddit