Perpetual Change

A watch and a painting

Imagine a beautiful, expensive watch. Imagine the workmanship that helped to create it. Each piece and part is precisely crafted, calibrated and fitted. Each piece builds on the others, dropped carefully into place in the proper order, until the last piece, no more critical than the rest and yet not less, is fitted. At that proper moment, when the last piece falls, the clock snaps to life, as if it has always been running and will always run, but when in fact it had a definite moment of completion. The watch will continue to keep time without human interaction, always offering the same usefulness to those who need it, but indifferent to the existence of such a need or to whom has it.

Now imagine a beautiful painting. The artist starts with a blank canvas, exactly like so many others, but yet with some intrinsic, simplistic beauty of its own. He then piles on background, colors on top of colors, sometimes working quickly and at once, sometimes slowly or in pieces over years. Eventually a picture begins to appear, and there is a point, when satisfied or not, the artist will stop, but he knows the work is really never finished. He has poured his soul into his work, but the end goal is to sell his work, and he will call it complete when he thinks someone will buy it.

This is my most current analogy for life in Ukraine. It is a comparison of American and Ukrainian project planning. Each ends with a masterpiece, but the process is so different. Trying to place a clock into a painting, without extraordinary talent, will almost certainly look ridiculous. This is often how I feel, an American in a strictly Ukrainian context; however, while recently planning a project with a Ukrainian friend, I noticed that I have slipped slightly and casually over to the dark side of no deadlines and no certainties. Planning here is really a process of ever changing circumstances, and the most successful projects flow with these sometimes precarious situations, instead of trying to swim against them, but that means accepting a great degree of uncertainty and putting projects out “for sale” when you aren’t so sure they are done to your liking, but you are pretty sure no one will notice the difference. Like art, project planning here is less of a thing or product and more of a process, an interaction. In America, projects and causes exist because of their own intrinsic worth and try to attract supporters and participants. Here, the cause exists solely to serve its audience. Without an observer, there is not art.

I hope this analogy makes this difference seem simple. In reality, it is anything but. Thoughts?

posted by jjs @ 7:04 AM