The Apprentice’s Pillar

I just came back from a few weeks wandering around Scotland.

This is about one story I heard while wandering.

Built in 1446, the Rosslyn Abbey was constructued on one of those grand estate things that Sir someone-or-other inhabits, but it’s just as famous for Tom Hanks climbing into the basement in 2003 to break the code.

All good, but the story that captures your imagination is about an apprentice stonemason. He’s working with his master to do the church pillars. They’re out of ideas. The master decides to head to France for inspiration and sails off. While he’s away, the apprentice dreams of an amazing pillar. He wakes and jots down the sketch. The Lord loves the drawing and encourages the Apprentice to craft the pillar.

Today it is known as The Apprentice’s Pillar. It is beautiful.

Anyway, as the story continues, the master comes back, sees the apprentice’s masterpiece, has a fit of jealousy, and promptly kills the apprentice. He’s sentenced to death for his deed.

Today the Apprentice’s Pillar stands next to the Master’s Pillar. Together they hold the church, and stand amongst a stack of other pillars that are frankly uninspiring. With no master and no apprentice, I guess they just became perfunctory in ensuring the roof stayed up, but forwent imagination, passion, and creativity for functionality.

There are moments when we are the master, and moments when we are the apprentice. Moments of creativity and passion, and moments of just getting things done.

But there are bigger lessons. Something about travelling around with people you love, relaxed and with the phone off, that affords time to reflect and think slowly.

Here’s what I came up with.

Inspiration is in unexpected places and people. You don’t have to travel to France for three months to find that one idea or one magical thing. The person next to you every day might hold the inspiration you’re searching for. Be open all the time, not just to a bigger grander plan or place.

Sometimes the best and most creative ideas come from a moment to think, or a glass of wine with friends, or a book on a different topic that prompts a possibility, or even just from your own imagination.

Dare to dream of different or bigger or even huge, not just ‘a little bit better’.

Experience, practice, knowledge, learning, life – all good lessons that create mastery. But mastery is of one way of doing something. Contexts change, and possibilities and options change. New eyes, new perspectives, and even a lack of experience can create space for possibilities.

Even if you’re considered the ‘master’, make space for different, better, and even wrong.

Make space for others to own the space and do something wonderful.

Find the seriously wonderful joy in being the support act in someone else’s story rather than the protagonist in every build. Watching someone you helped and supported exceed everything you taught them, is one of THE best feelings ever. Applauding them and celebrating their success from the audience, is pure joy. It is celebrating the future. The possibilities beyond.

Try something new. Learn something different. Be open to not knowing. Don’t expect the perfection of the mastery you already know. Be part of inventing next, better or beyond. Relax in a vulnerable form of learning, and be open to teachers from anywhere. Love the learning as much, or more, than you love the teaching.

Mastery has its place. Experience, knowledge, and learning build intuition that makes things fast and sometimes quite easy. They even make things excellent—consistently so.

New ideas, however, will own the future. Mastery of the past will undoubtedly be one of their foundations, but only one. Imagination, possibilities, creativity, and dreams will be there too.

It’s actually a very cool way to think about passing the baton for a better, and hopefully more beautiful, future we all get to share.

P.S. Get to Scotland, or somewhere else you’ve never been, if you can.

Mosey, meander, and don’t rush.

Find time to think.