When are the basics too basic?
A response to The Continuum of Creators (And Why Atomic Habits makes True Artists Cringe)
My fellow STSC (Soaring Twenties Social Club) member Clintavo, publisher of The Sovereign Artist Substack, published an intriguing essay called The Continuum of Creators (And Why Atomic Habits makes True Artists Cringe) which sparked a few thoughts of my own. Clintavo (or Clint Watson) is an experienced artist and community builder (30+ years) and clearly knows what he’s talking about. Nonetheless, there’s a few points that I’d like to discuss in relation to his essay, and it comes down to three main things:
why do things become popular and often overshared
when are the basics too basic and why do we forget things
what bearing does the book have on becoming a great writer, artist or creator
The subject of Clintavo’s essay is a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear - chances are good that you’ve heard of Clear or his book if you’ve been online during the past decade because it’s gotten a lot of attention, plus Clear has been a successful blogger for a number of years.
As you would expect, the book is about the virtues of building good habits and provides a number of suggestions to help you incorporate them into your life. There’s also some opinions in Clear’s writing that were a bit unusual, one of which is that he argues that habits are more powerful than setting objectives, which flies in the face of decades of objective and performance measuring practices.
The use of the word atomic in the book title has two meanings, from my perspective:
tiny - one of the appealing things about the Atomic Habits methodology is that you can start building habits in an almost effortless manner by taking a tiny piece of the habit that you want to build, turn that into a regularly repeated action, then keep adding to it until you build the full desired habit.
powerful - the potential power of Atomic Habits is the compound result of the new habits you incorporate into your life (assuming you are successful in establishing these habits)
Why do things become popular and often overshared?
People have been writing about the virtues of establishing good habits for years: from the Stoics and many religious and spiritual orders to Stephen Covey, Norman Vincent Peale, Benjamin Franklin and many others. There’s a lot of interest, and a lot of frustration, about setting and maintaining good habits because it can be really hard to both start and maintain them.
Clear seems to have established a winning formula of message, marketing and advocacy to entice a number of people recommend Atomic Habits online as one of the most important books you can read. Exactly how he’s done it is beyond me but I speculate that it’s very hard to go wrong by recommending the book: it’s an idea that appeals to a lot of people; the book is easy to read; it’s written in a non-threatening, non-judgmental tone; and it offers what’s possibly the least painful path to getting started. Plus he did benefit from exposure on The CBS Morning Show and other media outlets.
To me it makes perfect sense that this kind of book is something that people would recommend, much in the way that The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People appealed to millions of readers: simple, easily digestible messages that promised great things and actually had a fair chance of delivering the goods if the reader applied them with some diligence and scaled up over time.
When are the basics too basic? Can you forget the basics?
Here’s where things start to get interesting. Is Atomic Habits too simple and too obvious? Is it overblown? Is it a waste of time and money?
Here are some thoughts from Clintavo about the book:
I'm in my fifties now, I'm fairly comfortable with my work, with my habits, with my life and with my livelihood. It felt like, to me, that Atomic Habits simply isn’t saying anything new, and isn’t saying anything I haven't heard before. And, in all fairness, it probably isn't, there is nothing new under the sun, after all. So, it feels like, from my perspective, that there isn't anything it can teach me, and so, I'd rather read something else. But, when I think back to when I was younger, and trying to build my business, to make my way in the world, to be more “productive”, and to be more effective, I admit that I did devour a number of similar books. The types of books we would refer to as “productivity porn” today. And, at the time, I honestly felt like they helped me.
The power of habits may be obvious to me now, after spending two decades building good habits, but I'm further along on my journey than many people, so I need to think back to what my journey was like at earlier stages. It dawns on me that an enlightened guru wouldn't need to read a fictional book called Atomic Meditation, because, at some point, one leaves techniques behind and they simply become part of you. But a beginning meditator might learn a lot from Atomic Meditation. Similarly, someone just getting started, who didn't read whatever the 90s version of Atomic Habits was (which I'm sure I did read), might learn and internalize a lot from Atomic Habits. Perhaps it depends on where you are on your journey. Especially your professional journey.
There’s a couple of points that I’ll make here:
I agree with Clintavo that a book like Atomic Habits will have a different impact on your life depending on your age and your life experience. I’m roughly the same age as Clintavo (I think) - pretty sure we’re both Gen X and I’m in a similar position in my career. My sense is that the Millennial and Z generations get less structure and routine in their lives than we did (or, perversely, a hell of a lot more, especially if they’re involved in sports and advanced academics) and many of them are paying for the lack of discipline when they try to integrate into the workforce without some foundational skills and habits.
However, life is increasingly chaotic today compared to 20 - 30 years ago. Yes, everyone has a lot of choices available to them for entertainment and education that previous generations didn’t have. However, the amount of change that’s rolled through: society; the educational systems; modern culture; politics; disasters and tragedies; the shifting messages of religion; economic systems held together by baling twine and chewing gum and pushed past their safe limits; plus more split and hybrid families forcing continuous schedule changes in the worst changes… I could go on, but clearly it’s been a lot of change and it gets really hard to maintain consistent routines and habits throughout this. So a book like Atomic Habits would appeal to people who want to get their acts together, especially if they are feeling overweight, overstressed and if they’re drinking too much, for example.
There’s an additional point that I’ll throw out there: getting back to the basics. We hear this phrase used a lot in professional sports, baseball in particular. Professional sports is built around building habits or, more precisely, building a storehouse of knowledge, routines and motions that are called upon instantly when needed to make the right play at the right time. Most importantly, they should not require conscious thought - they should occur automatically in the presence of the right cues: how many players are on base, what’s the pitch count, is the batter right handed or left handed, what inning is it, how many strikes and balls has the current batter accumulated at the at bat, etc. When the right actions are not happening automatically they will often be done incorrectly, creating negative impacts on the current game and the team as a whole.
Even an expert can forget the basics when subjected to stress.
Back to basics means just what it implies: more practice, more drills, more repetitions of routine actions and plays to take reactions out of the conscious mind and into the unconscious mind, which works much more quickly than its ponderous counterpart. In other words, back to basics means more work on reinforcing good habits.
In the case of a seasoned professional who’s not an athlete, back to basics can still apply if you let some of your skills atrophy at the expense of others. Or maybe you’re under a lot of stress and you’ve had to take shortcuts to stay afloat, meaning that you’re not performing at your best. Maybe too much overtime means too much alcohol and junk food and too little quality sleep. No matter how much experience you may have, you can become overwhelmed and lose (or simply forget) good habits no matter how deeply they are engrained. And so a book like Atomic Habits may provide a palatable solution to your immediate needs to rebuild your discipline and get back to where you once belonged.
What bearing does Atomic Habits have on becoming a great writer, artist or creator?
Clintavo wrote about the difference between artists and content creators:
In the past half decade, the internet has gone crazy with talk of the burgeoning "Creator economy." On Twitter, it seems every other person is referring to themselves as a "Content Creator." Somehow, the word "content" has overtaken the words "writing”, “images”, “art”, and “videos.” And the word "creator" has overtaken the words "writer", "artist", "photographer" and "filmmaker." That is a tragedy of modernity and deserves a separate essay to explore further.
Clintavo associates some of the people who lavishly praise Atomic Habits with being less experienced, less talented writers and entrepreneurs who are looking to improve their lot by trying to align themselves with their visions of success and good taste.
Clintavo also presents a model of mastery on a Creator/Art Continuum: moving from a less talented, less innovative beginner focused on monetization and establishing a following to a passionate, original creator. This model bears some resemblance the the Dreyfuss theory of skill acquisition and mastery, where the learner moves from basic skill acquisition to the ability to produce original work and solve novel problems. After a certain point, a creator moves on from the basics like elementary skill and habit acquisition to more original and complex work, driven not just by routine and commercial desires but ultimately by passion and by love of the craft.
Clintavo’s model is useful to 2022 because he highlights some of the parroting and repetition rampant in some corners of social media: the desire to advance one’s position by presenting your idealized self: reference the right resources, say the right things, produce copies of the right “content” until your reputation becomes closer to your ambitions (“fake it until…”) - you won’t find this context in the Dreyfuss model but it’s very similar.
Eventually an artist needs to move beyond the basics and experiment. But the foundation should remain strong and should inform the work but the work should be rise above to be special and genuine.
The value of simplicity
In a perfect world, you could argue that the greatest artists would be universally recognized for the brilliance of their work, with its depth, complexity and profundity, and would reap the best possible rewards. You could argue that a simple text like Atomic Habits receives an outsized amount of praise for the wrong reasons: not even for the value that it does provide but because of the credibility it conveys through its recommendation.
Let’s remember, though, that there’s value in all levels of complexity and challenge. With experience comes wisdom and knowledge of the best resources for the best purpose. In time, people either become wise or they don’t - you can only hope that, at the very least, they become self-aware and able to make good choices.
I picked up Atomic Habits a few months ago. I’m not sure why--maybe because I read somewhere that it was life-changing book. I don’t think I made it through Chapter 2.
So much that Clintavo hit home for me. I am 47 and have no desire to be more productive at my day job. I want to write more, but I couldn’t seem to find a good groove to that. Maybe that’s why I bought the book? It’s like you pointed out, Mark:
“...it’s been a lot of change and it gets really hard to maintain consistent routines and habits throughout this.”
This was exactly what I was feeling--the overwhelm and the being pulled in different directions because of...well, life. Then I read Digital Detox. Now *that* is a book worth reading. I stepped back from social media and found my creative self again.
I began reading more, which sparked more journaling and letters. Then I decided to start sharing my thoughts with others, but this time not on social media or a blog or a webpage. I started a Substack and committed to posting once a week.
And like magic, I found that groove. I have no set schedule or regular routines. I’m all over the place...literally! The only things I did differently were:
1. Make writing a priority
2. Write anytime, anywhere
I used to have this notion that I must have a set block of time in a certain space at a specific time of day to write. I learned instead that little chunks of writing with some bigger blocks of time to pull together the whole piece are enough.
Thanks for sharing the original post and your response post. Very thought-provoking!
Thank you for the thoughtful response essay! You make a very good point that even experts sometimes need to get "back to basics." I can't deny that Atomic Habits seems to resonate with people, sometimes even experts, and if it helps people - it has worth. I was mostly trying to understand why I didn't feel the same way when I tried to read it.