Instincts to Innovate

How inclined are we to innovate, especially when it involves work and brand new ways of doing things? Why not remain in our comfort zones? Maybe innovative behaviours are such a primal force that it drives us so hard, leaving us no choice but to ... well...continue being innovative regardless of how discomfiting it is.

I have grown to love my running (‘Lessons from the road’ posting) and one thing I have come to understand is that pain sometimes evokes true motivation and provokes emotional connections that come form the core of who we are. My breakthrough moments; switching from walking 8 Km to running 10 Km; increasing my 10 Km run speed from a fat speed of 5 Km/h to a semi-fat speed of 7 Km/h (and improving steadily); all these occurred when my body was at its most painful and full of aches and pains in my knees, ankle, feet, shins – every part of my legs.

When I somehow managed to start running when my body was screaming to just stay still, there was intense discomfort and pain for one to two minutes, and then everything disappeared and the full run became a sheer joy and pleasure.  Bur breaking through the screaming pain barrier was a few minutes of hell.

Excuse my focus on my running please. I am running long distance for the first time in my life, and soon I will be at my weight when I was 20 years old. Those of you who have been through the process will understand what I am feeling, those of you who have not might find some meaning in what I say.

What has all this to do with primal instincts that drive us to innovate?

Pain, hardship and painstaking labour evoke true motivation and provoke deep emotional connections that build real understanding, empathy and a vision of knowledge as it should be managed, manipulated and made to become a prototype in the real world.   

That is my realisation about why innovation is an inherent part of our lives, and should naturally occur in every person’s life.

We should not be looking at innovation as an outside experience. It is what makes us who we are, every waking and sleeping moment of our lives. That is what our lives are built upon – the constant need to improve and change and to become better at what we do and who we are.

If that is not the innovation process, then what is?

A big problem is that innovation has become a word and process that only the almighty THEY are able to use.  The rickshaw peddler who sticks a wind driven fan in the front of his vehicle to generate attractive sound and motion to attract customers is being innovative. The hawker who uses a charcoal stove to cook, and sets-up a foot pump driven fan to fan the charcoal blaze to generate different levels of heat for the cooking process, is being innovative. The al fresco shop owner who lays out a hole-ridden hose on top of his roof to cool down the restaurant, and does this for next to no-cost even, is being innovative.

These people are not setting out to be innovative. They are faced with problems, not enough customers for the rickshaw peddler, not enough heat for the charcoal chef, too much heat for al fresco dining – they are close to the problem, it affects their livelihood, this causes a PAIN that needs to be removed. So without trying to understand what innovation is and what the process is, they have become innovators, and successful ones too.

We come back to the word ‘PAIN’.

Putting aside all the research, putting aside all the data, putting aside the knowledge gurus and leading experts – let us just look at PAIN.

Pain is a primal feeling, and we need no experience of it to recognize it and know when we will or are facing it. It elicits determination, will, passion – all those things that drive us at a primal level. I certainly am not talking just about physical pain, but also emotional, mental and psychic pain – that which we can imagine a person close to us is feeling.

My theory is that if someone is placed in a situation where enough pain is felt or perceived, then you can generate the full resources of the human spirit to combat that pain – to remove it, to surpass it or to ensure it does not happen again. There are many categories for plans of actions.

The most important thing to achieve should anyone want to be able to connect to someone else’s pain in an ethical (or perhaps unethical too?) manner is to understand what the NEED is that has to be achieved, and what the personal thresholds for the people involved are. This is of course problematic, but with enough experience and know-how, what is there that is not possible?

I guess that is what my big realisation is as I spend my exhilarating time on the road when running. My pain translates into an over active imagination that starts laying out tasks and achievements that need to happen for me. My family and friends ask me how the heck it is that I do not find it boring, but for me, it is exciting as every run is a passage of new discoveries and realisations. In fact, the instant I enter my home after every run, I quickly start making notes so I do not forget when my brain succumbs to the flood of endorphins, that is another great reward after experiencing pain.

Do you know, in the time I started running, I have written a 110K word novel titled ‘Kitrajaedon: Book One – Champions and Masters’? It took two months, and is a story about fantasy, science and fiction of man and our legends spanning the universe in search of design and meaning. Will be releasing it on Amazon in two to three weeks. I pretty much wrote the book while I was running, and the ideas don’t stop. In fact, I am already started on the second book (of the complete series of ten books) while I am making final edits to this one.

Yeah Baby! It’s not the power of love, it’s the power of pain!