Enough time for inspiration?

I am not exactly sure how long professional musicians train per day with their instruments. I assume several hours. I heard on TV that Jimi Hendrix once mentioned he did guitar exercises for up to 6 h a day (and certainly he could play even without...). In such way, the last step to perfection in an arts’ environment is achieved when inspiration goes hand in hand with perfectionistic dedication to practice. I see the opposite when biking to work in the morning. I start from a rural area with a lot of farm land with many cows, sheep and also horses. Those animals seem to be busy the whole day with eating. There are a lot of such animals around, in particular horses – one of the Team Jumping silver medalists of the Olympic Games in London 2012 comes from the village just next to mine. When I pedal back in the evening, they still stand there with their heads down close to the grass. No time for inspiration.

As the reader might imagine now, I am asking myself where I stand in between these two extremes. Not “I” in the sense of an Editor-in-Chief or professor at TU Eindhoven, but the “I” who is a scientist. Obviously, it is a very creative job, close to that of an artist. It even has the potential to be a dream job. Definitely, creativity is a key to innovation and impact, which are the two measures by which scientists are constantly evaluated. Thus, we need inspiration and perfectionistic training. There is no doubt about it. Yet, how much do we have actually in times when professors have become part of administration in addition to considerable teaching, social, and – last but not least – financial management managing commitments? Virtually being the “CEOs” of their groups and in this function having also “cash cow status” being the whole day busy like the above mentioned animals are.

I find the simple answer is provided by looking at my hourly time booking sheets every day. I assign many hours to the category “other business” which denotes that I was not working on a project, teaching, researching or busy with any other specific category that the creator of that Internet booking site imagined a professor might do. How much do those “other-business” actually fill? Truly speaking, they dominate. What is the cause? Endless emails … signing for travels, bills proofing, and dealing with personnel affairs. … internal documentation … there is more “endless” to add. I must emphasize though that I regard our administration as lean and adequate. But even so, all these things take a lot of time; a major part of everyone’s day. Coming back to Jimi Hendrix, I am wondering how “Voodoo Chile” would have sounded if he had been busy and sweated away 5–6 hours a day with more routine things. It is not only time which is gone, but also the energy that has vanished. A brain cannot be fully inspired after having worked already for almost a full working day. Yet, I (as probably many others) tend to go first for “urgency” and then for “relevance/impact”. Thus, my inspired hours start often in the evening (after my sports, exercise, or maybe a massage). They continue commonly past midnight.

The question that burns is how can today’s scientists be more what they should be – inspired and inspiring developers of technologies who advance mankind, and not project managers, group leaders, and so on? It is wise to ask for outside help when one is stuck deeply in routine business. When I consult professional coaches, they advise to reserve free hours for the inspiration and training implement such refreshing slots into my calendar and even to move to another location than my office. In a way, hiding in the woods as the US philosophers of the 19^th century discussed and the Woodstock era last century rediscovered. This is not immediately doable, since the imminent agenda is already fixed and difficult to change. But certainly this is possible looking ahead about 6 months when the calendar is nearly blank. I think this is a good plan. Yet, as a professor and scientist one cannot work strictly following an agenda. Rather the opposite is true. At least I think that, but like to hear other opinions. The point is that a myriad of daily requests run in. Continuously. Professional coaches will advise to make a critical weighing what to do and what not. The point is that even the ‘unavoidable rest’ is huge - requests for recommendation notes from best friends and colleagues and former students, funding agencies and scientific journals asking for evaluations to one which has close relationship, invitations to PhD defense committees, etc. The volume is so massive that any agenda setting is about as futile as predicting weather 7 days from now. On top of that, come some long-ranging tasks such as setting up a new course to teach or coordinating large-scale project proposal which cannot be avoided (and which actually are an essential part of being a scientist). Such actions virtually engage me for 2–3 months. Honestly, I should then block out all other requests and focus only on the heavy-duty demands. Please note that would also mean blocking inspiration and training. Alas, such blocking is simply unrealistic wishful thinking, as one cannot escape from the very normal other daily requests. At least not without fatal consequences.

To come to a good end, I managed in recent weeks – after a ‘marathon of working for several EU proposals’ which made me fully exhausted and half “scientific Europe” as well – to come back to my inspiration and training. How did that go? I followed professional advice even more strictly, was more efficient, set priorities, canceled some things (including seemingly “uncancellable visits”), and profit finally from my hardworking, efficient team. I think that is not all. This was also partly given before. And I reaffirmed my belief into the need to have room for inspiration and unlimited enjoying it once it is there. This gives me the needed “never give up mentality” to create exactly that space. The philosopher Nietzsche might have called this a strong internal survival will – something from our primitive past. Yet, this separates us from the animals with their mindless will to eat. I still puzzle over this and have strong desire to further improve. And I will do so. I aspire to focus like the musicians and taking me away from the “cow status” and spend less time for slaving away.