Review of The Element: Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

The Element: Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, written by Dr Ken Robinson with the assistance of Lou Aronica, (Penguin, London, 2009).

In my thirties and forties, I was deeply invested in self-help books.  Understandable indeed, given that at that age I was somewhere between entering and enduring what is commonly termed the “midlife crisis.”  I was then well aware of Carl Jung's concept of the two halves of life, which suggested a distinct shift in focus as individuals progress through life. The first half, according to this analytical psychologist, is primarily concerned with building a strong ego and adapting to societal norms, while the second half involves turning inward, letting go of the ego, and seeking deeper meaning and purpose.  I have many self-help books on my shelves which I am in the process of weeding out, offering them to others, bringing them to the various incarnations of charity shops or simply dumping them in the recycle bin.  However, in the process of letting go of these not-so-heavy but well-thumbed “pop psychology” books, I thought I might as well review one of them for this blog.

The Element: Finding Your Passion Changes Everything fits into the category of personal development, has a nice bright cover, and readers buy such books in the vain hope of finding the key to success in life.  It could be read in one sitting in two or three hours, as, unlike say philosophy or science or even good psychology, one really does not have to struggle with understanding the arguments.  However, like all such books, it speaks interminably in generalities and sweeping statements, and really the reader will be nodding in agreement, saying something like, "Yes, I agree with all that. There is much wisdom here."  And yet that same reader will be disappointed, as I always am with such books, because extraordinarily little by way of strategies are set out upon the page in such a way as to help you put that "element" you have found into practice; if indeed you are ever lucky enough to have found the so-called quality called by such a “scientific” designation, and then improbably earn a living by it.

I now read such books, not in the vain hope of suddenly landing the perfect job with the right amount of financial remuneration, but to gain a few insights into living life better.  At least all these types of books can do just that, but no more.  Dr Ken Robinson, in this easily read book, asserts that finding your element in life will allow you to live much more happily and contentedly.  He speaks about our need to connect with our true innate talents, about "growing creatively," and finding our element, which he defines thus: "I use the term the Element to describe the place where the things we love to do and the things we are good at come together" (p. xiii).

Dr Robinson also speaks in generalities, in which books like this abound.  He speaks about a richer cultural vision for humankind, of nurturing human talents and of improving human society.  While finding your element is truly about discovering what you really can do and about who you really are, it also, he maintains, has implications for how to run our schools, businesses, communities, and institutions.  Yes indeed, all this is laudable, but it is all highly and wholly aspirational.  It's awfully hard to see how such aspirations can be put into practice at all.  This is also a major criticism of most self-help or personal development books like this: they have all the general and laudable ideas, all the aspirations, and they are all truisms, yet, how to put them into practice is the major lacuna in all such works.  Furthermore, such books really don’t take into account the existential project that life actually is on balance: they concentrate almost wholly on positivity in such an unbalanced way as to allow it to become somewhat toxic.   In other words, it works to our detriment in the final analysis if we do not take suffering and anxiety seriously as necessary counterbalances to wellbeing and good mental and physical health.  Such books often give readers unfounded hope and unrealistic expectations in serious situations.  At best, we will gain insights into living better.  At worst, the gullible among us might come to believe that we can “think ourselves better” in all circumstances.

Still, I have learned some interesting insights from Dr Ken Robinson, one of which is the difference between imagination and creativity, the demarcation points between both being somewhat blurred in my mind. Robinson sees creativity as putting imagination into action.  It's all too easy to have the ideas, but putting them into action, trying them out is the most important aspect of the whole enterprise.  This is where creativity comes in, because this latter is all about putting the ideas, good, bad or indifferent that the imagination comes up with into practice. In fact, in a felicitous sentence, Robinson underscores the difference between imagination and creativity thus: "You can think of creativity as applied imagination." (p. 67)

Other interesting points for me were given in two chapters with interesting headings: “In the Zone” and “Finding Your Tribe.”  The first is about discovering the power of the element at work in you, and this very discovery is energising to say the least.  Being in the zone is where you are conscious that you are in your element and that energy is literally flowing through you in a very natural way.  I get this natural feeling when I am either writing or reading my poems or when I was doing MC at school functions some years ago.  Things come together.  Yes, we do our preparations, but extra insights and wisdom and inspiration hit us and flow through us when we perform, giving a more profound order than that of which our preparations made us aware in the first place.  I experienced this "in the zone" several times over the years: at the graduation of our sixth years each calendar year and at a reading I gave of my Irish poems on Arranmore Island some years back.  There was indeed something elemental at work because I had the distinct feeling on those occasions that this was my natural work, that this was what I was good at and that energy was flowing through me.  However, finding that element at work in or through me did not bring added wealth, but it did bring satisfaction and a little enlightenment.   

Another interesting point Robinson makes here is that it is not like work at all, that you are energised rather than burning up energy.  If you find your element, you can do your work effortlessly, but of course with some initial preparation.   I remember one of our national broadcasters, Pat Kenny, saying that he was extremely lucky because his hobby was his job.  Very few people can boast of that.  Pat Kenny (a radio and television host) is in his element, and he is so lucky to be earning vast sums of money for doing it.  As I write, he is still happily broadcasting and growing ever richer at 75 years of age.

The second interesting chapter is entitled "Finding Your Tribe" and this is all about finding like-minded souls or kindred spirits.  When I speak with other poets, I am energised because we have so much in common.  Finding one's tribe, then, is like coming home in a sense: you have to be welcomed into the arms of the fellowship because it is your spiritual or natural family in a deep sense. Therefore, we should work at finding some place where we really belong.  This sense of deep spiritual belonging with kindred spirits supports and nourishes us.

I will finish this post with another interesting insight that Robinson offers us about the difference between Western and Eastern minds.  In a study, Westerners and Asians were asked to look at a series of pictures and to describe what they saw.  Essentially, Westerners tended to look at the foreground and to focus on what they consider to be the subject of the photograph.  Asians, on the other hand, focus more on the whole image, including the relationships between all the elements in the picture.  Also, in Asian art there is much less emphasis on portraiture or even on individual subjects.  Furthermore, in Asian art and culture, there is less emphasis on the individual and more on the collective.  Western Philosophy, as also Western Culture, has always been concerned about the significance of the individual, the growth of the self, the importance of that individual and his or her freedom.