Your passion for this topic shines thru. One question I would pose is: what are the downsides or the shadow sides of mastery. It feels like mastery is being positioned as the “right” approach and the other three are the “wrong” approaches. What complicates this narrative?
Great question Matt, thanks - that has given me something to ponder.
What leads me to the understanding of mastery I'm trying to put forward is its egolessness, in contrast to other conceptions which may emphasise status, where mastery has elements of narcissism or elitism. I’m trying to assert mastery as an optional process, rather than bring any judgement on whether it is right or wrong. The mastery attitude wouldn’t be optimal for many of life’s everyday tasks, but for those to which we feel meaningfully drawn, it could be a helpful philosophy.
In may day job I've been a people manager for some time, and I realise that the most fruitful interactions I've had have been where we have delved deeply into their attitudes towards their own learning and development from a philosophical standpoint - so I'm seeing this approach to mastery as a synthesis of those personal experiences into a useful framework for being more structured in this kind of work.
Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, but I would say the shadow side of mastery is grotesquery (or, thinking with Leonard, we could say grotesquery is the consequence of being an obsessive). David Foster Wallace elegantly explores the idea in his essay on Michael Joyce, who at the time of its writing was the 79th best tennis player in the world.
Your passion for this topic shines thru. One question I would pose is: what are the downsides or the shadow sides of mastery. It feels like mastery is being positioned as the “right” approach and the other three are the “wrong” approaches. What complicates this narrative?
Great question Matt, thanks - that has given me something to ponder.
What leads me to the understanding of mastery I'm trying to put forward is its egolessness, in contrast to other conceptions which may emphasise status, where mastery has elements of narcissism or elitism. I’m trying to assert mastery as an optional process, rather than bring any judgement on whether it is right or wrong. The mastery attitude wouldn’t be optimal for many of life’s everyday tasks, but for those to which we feel meaningfully drawn, it could be a helpful philosophy.
In may day job I've been a people manager for some time, and I realise that the most fruitful interactions I've had have been where we have delved deeply into their attitudes towards their own learning and development from a philosophical standpoint - so I'm seeing this approach to mastery as a synthesis of those personal experiences into a useful framework for being more structured in this kind of work.
Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, but I would say the shadow side of mastery is grotesquery (or, thinking with Leonard, we could say grotesquery is the consequence of being an obsessive). David Foster Wallace elegantly explores the idea in his essay on Michael Joyce, who at the time of its writing was the 79th best tennis player in the world.