Spiral Staircase

post by Michael Samoilov (michael-samoilov) · 2023-08-01T21:51:34.606Z · LW · GW · 2 comments

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Here was the life cycle of an insight:

“If I put this candle in an all-white gallery space, it looks like a piece of art. If I put it in a garage, it looks like a piece of trash. [...] I often use this analogy in design. I could either design the candle, [...] or I could just design the room that it sits in.”

— Virgil Abloh, the late founder & CEO of Off-White, artistic director at LVMH

That’s pretty insightful Virgil, I thought, so let’s look for evidence of this (earnestly) genius insight in your designs. And I searched on Google images, “off-white clothes,” and I didn’t find any genius innovation in his designs. Disappointing.

But wait—of course I wouldn’t find evidence in the products themselves. The whole point was the surrounding context, invisible to Google images and me: the store displays, the scarce releases, the celebrity collaborations.

But wait again—isn’t that just the 4 P’s of marketing? The ones you learn in highschool business class? Product, price, place, and promotion. What Virgil said is, don’t design the product, design the other three P’s. Disappointing.

Many such cases. An idea seems insightful, then I realize it’s actually one I already knew, just wearing a new coat. But you do have a choice of how to respond in these situations. Either, the idea is trite, commonplace, and unoriginal; nothing new under the sun... Or, the idea is a new aspect of the same essence, another facet of the same diamond, another petal from the same flower; there is nothing new under the sun!

When you rederive the same insight from a different direction, you aren’t merely back where you started. You are earning an intuition to notice the idea when it comes up, grasp which of its levers you can pull, and in which conditions it applies differently. And you can do all this easily, even subconsciously, because once you understand the way broadly, you see it in all things.

If you recognized Abloh’s quote as analogous to the 4 P’s of marketing, you’re getting closer to sensing the world like a marketing executive: naturally seeing the concept, its extensions and limitations, and using it to explain reality around you. This is far different from sensing the world like a highschooler: having just learned the 4 P’s, and straining to apply it in a closed-book exam.

Instead of pawing the idea like a beginner, you wield it like a master. You aren’t back where you started, you’re one level higher. You aren’t walking in circles, you’re climbing a spiral staircase.

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Months after I conceived this by myself, and I’m sure I wasn’t the first, I read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. In it, Siddhartha and his friend Govinda meditate for years, brief respites from the pain and pointlessness of life. Yet every time they escape the self, they inevitably reinhabit their selves. Siddhartha laments how they achieve nothing different than an alcoholic, guzzling to briefly drown his senses. Govinda argues, no, that’s not the same; they return more enlightened after each meditation, but the drunkard is just that after waking from his delusion. Siddhartha reflects:

“What now, oh Govinda, might we be on the right path? Might we get closer to enlightenment? Might we get closer to salvation? Or do we perhaps live in a circle—we, who have thought we were escaping the cycle?”

Quoth Govinda: “We have learned a lot, Siddhartha, there is still much to learn. We are not going around in circles, we are moving up, the circle is a spiral, we have already ascended many a level.”

Many such cases. Turns out, my treasured insight was long-trodden ground, trite down to the choice of imagery. I can’t help but feel disappointed... But wait a second—

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