..without breaking a
few eggs."
This phrase has been in
my head this week as I have mused on the topic of eggs. I've been
wondering about it's deeper meaning, and since I couldn't find it in
my dusty copy of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (an
essential tome for any reference shelf in my humble opinion), I had
to resort instead to Wiktionary for a good definition: "in
order to achieve something, it's inevitable and necessary that
something should be destroyed". An unverified internet
source also suggested that the phrase emerged out of the tumult of
the French revolution, giving it a somewhat darker slant - guillotine
humour.
I take great
satisfaction in the very act of cracking of an egg into a frying pan,
let alone the resulting enjoyment of egg on toast (if I'm honest I
don't actually make many omelettes). I suppose you could also
interpret the phrase along the lines that you can't enjoy your eggs
without breaking their shells, since not many of us eat our eggs with
the shells on (I say not many, because I am sure that there are
people in this world who do actually eat eggs with the shells on).
Regular readers will
know that I've been thinking a lot around creativity and innovation
these past few months, and among the many interesting books I've been
reading, Steven Johnson's "Where Good Ideas Come From" has
some really interesting thoughts on creative environments and (as the
title suggests), where good ideas come from.
Increasingly, it seems
that the best ideas come from collaboration and openness rather than (just) the
solo effort of an individual. In fact, Johnson suggests that many of
us need aspects of other people's ideas to complete our own, as they
also need ours.
For creative people,
our ideas, dreams and visions can often feel like precious eggs which
we sit on for months and years waiting for them to hatch. Maybe some
of these do hatch, but I bet that the vast majority remain incomplete and unhatched in some way. We can feel very protective of our idea-eggs, but
perhaps this protective attitude isn't actually serving us in the way
we think it is. Perhaps it's actually slowing us down - reducing us
to waddling speed, earthbound like Emperor penguins desperately
protecting their eggs between their legs.
If what Johnson
suggests is true, and it has a strong sense of "truthiness" to me, then
if we really want our ideas, dreams and visions to fly then we need
to crack open our eggs and set them free to connect with other
people's ideas and dreams, to become something bigger than our own
imaginings. Perhaps we need to crack our dream-eggs into the
collective pan to make an omelette! By keeping our talents in their
safe eggshells we run the risk of them never reaching their
potential.. or to extend the egg metaphor further, to go off. If we think our ideas stink, maybe it's because we haven't given them enough air.
I believe that we're
given our talents, passions and dreams for a reason, by a loving
creator God. Without stepping into these, setting them free, letting
them hatch, the danger is that we miss out on the adventure planned
for us and settle for something less than we're able. Like the
servant in the parable who buries his talent rather than putting it
to work. Instead I want to be the one who makes the most of what he's given. This doesn't necessarily mean being the very best in our field, but it does mean becoming the best expression of who God has made me.. perhaps it's less about the magnitude of our talent and more about what we do with it.
I'm an adopted
Midlander, and I love the industrial history of the Midlands - it
really was the birthplace and heart of the industrial revolution,
which changed the face of the planet. The BBC have recently been
publishing a series of essays on the Midlands, and this week's (here)
is about the so called "Midlands Enlightenment". Suffice to
say it's a great historical example of people like Erasmus Darwin,
Matthew Boulton, James Watt and other members of the Birmingham Lunar
Society who cracked open their eggs, shared their ideas and came up
with a metaphorical omelette of world-changing technology, thinking
and action. We can learn much from these polymaths, not least the
power of collaboration and connection with those both similar and
different to ourselves.
In my day job, the
company I work for has a phrase "Stronger Together",
echoing the well known words of the Bible that "a cord of three
strands is not easily broken". If you're anything like me, then
it can be a vulnerable thing to share your precious dreams and visions
with others - but if we want them to grow wings, if we want them to
grow and develop in ways that are bigger than we can think, then we must
embrace openness and set them free. In my experience, God has a great
way of helping us step into our passions and use our talents in
unexpected and adventurous ways, especially when we bravely put our
ideas "out there" rather than keep them in their protective
shells.
So this week, why not
ask yourself whether you've been sitting on any eggs too long, and
whether there's an omelette of some kind you need to contribute to.
One final thought, from
my friend Dan (a keeper of quails). To make good eggs you need plenty
of grit in your diet (his quails certainly do) - so whatever your
area of talent, whatever shape your dreams take, whatever field your
ideas reside, are you feeding yourself enough grit to make good eggs?
In other words, where are you taking inspiration from? Are you
getting enough diversity in your reading/watching/listening/praying to stretch, challenge and feed your dreams?
Perhaps you need some extra grit, something to chew over, something
to get you thinking again..?
Thanks again for reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts, and happy cooking this week!
1 comment:
Thanks Luke. Food for thought! I particularly love the idea of 'plenty of grit' - Certainly doesn't sound like I can stay in my comfort zone then!
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