Pop career advice assumes one of two extremes: (1) a ruthless focus on developing superb skill (2) a morbid obsession with socialization. Both approaches inform education processes and career prospects. I call them The Lonely Prodigy, and The Social Animal. We address each in turn.

The Lonely Prodigy
The Lonely Prodigy swears by: “be so good they can’t ignore you.” While useful at the threshold of one’s career, sole reliance on it can slow career progress.

In Our Oriental Heritage (The Story of Civilization Volume 1) Will Durant observes that Education in a primitive setup served two purposes: (1) transmission of skills (2) training of character. The relationship of the student to his teacher was utilitarian. He says: “this direct and practical tutelage encouraged a rapid growth in the primitive child.” The product of this master-apprentice model of learning was a skilled student: efficient in execution and technically sound.

Proximity encourages prodigy. While personal instruction helps a student master his craft faster, the quick maturation in ability without equivalent exposure to culture quickly becomes a barrier. The student gets stuck with a hammer to which every problem is a nail. At the workplace, ideas and solutions proposed by the Lonely Prodigy lack imagination, verve, and perspective.

In what Durant has called “precocious maturity,” the student grows to see the world through the lens of his master and his craft alone. This narrow focus endows him with abilities well suited to his workshop and the limits of his craft. But outside his domain he fumbles. He lacks “a greater variety and flexibility of adaptive reactions to an artificial and unstable environment."

For the Lonely Prodigy, developing future-orientation and understanding past culture expands his comprehension by exposing him to diverse opinion and startling contradiction which provide the raw material for a richer and more pragmatic interpretation of the world. Distinct from his single-track training, culture acts as the much needed bridge between the garage and the public square.

The Social Animal

What the Lonely Prodigy lacks in understanding, the Social Animal compensates with interaction.

While the Lonely Prodigy prefers his studio, the Social Animal settles for visibility; he attracts attention, grows in popularity and keeps tabs on the latest news. He’s sensitive to people’s needs and can sniff out trends. His socialization gives him advanced tools for innovative thinking. He is a burst of freshness but the constant excitement of engaging in new projects coupled with multiple social commitments stretches his resources. Therefore he struggles to attract networks that are best fit by engaging in projects that strangle his soul while his best ideas rot waiting for his schedule to clear up.

Those who don’t understand label him '“unreliable” while those who do would rather mind their business. You can identify the Social Animal by the incoherent nature of his ideas. His varied insight lacks clarity because it is far too mixed up with the notions of other people for his individuality to shine through.

When the Social Animal creates time for deep introspection, he can have mind-shattering epiphanies that are both useful and novel.

Photo by Ato Aikins on Unsplash

The Rise of The Social Prodigy

In Mastery Robert Greene identifies the rewarding career as a generous blend of rational thinking and social intelligence.

The Social Prodigy is the embodiment of this curious mix of practice and intuition. Mature in his understanding of culture, he superimposes domain specific knowledge onto reality by asking questions, engaging people and taking time to peer beyond seemingly contradictory truths. He talks to organizations and individuals but he takes time to reflect on his conversations. To him, the present, the future and the past are equal sources of insight and inspiration.

As he does this, he attracts people of similar interests with whom he can collaborate, negotiate and persuade to solve problems. Building with other people guides him to appreciate and debate different lenses. This exchange forces him to elevate his thinking from the abstraction of his principal training to the practice of daily application. The Social Prodigy spends hours in research and study: honing his craft. But he doesn’t stop there. He expands his interests to neighbor-domains like a bee spinning from daisy to carnation. Deep domain expertise, social intelligence and the curious exploration of other fields gifts him a covetous bird’s-eye-view of the world, human beings, the times and the events that seem to shape reality.

Free from labels and stifling titles he acquires a taste for hunting problems. He embraces an uncertainty which anticipates, expects and engineers change in his environment. Led by curiosity he arrives at ideas and solutions that are a work of art: dimensional, relevant and illuminating.

Steinway & Sons describes Pianist Alfred Brendel as “the thinking pianist’s man.” The delicacy of his imaginative interpretation of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas pushes the listener to new adventures in sound and emotion unlike household renditions that project an angry-rock-star-Beethoven. With an elegant playfulness that values nonsense, Brendel breathes space, freedom and luxury into the scores of history's genius musicians. In this Steinway Podcast, Composer David Felsenfeld attempts to explain the brilliance of this Post-World War II musician, who armed with no musical genes, immersed himself in his craft, painting, poetry, literature and culture to come up with an understanding of sound that “allows scores to sing.”

For the Social Prodigy, the world becomes a playground. With a power that’s almost magical he bends reality. Far from mystical guesswork, he arrives at solutions with multi-disciplinary awareness and a deep comprehension that embraces human complexity. His art is timeless.

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