That I needed my own “big vision”

Discovering my own raison d'être in a post-talk chat

Finishing up on stage the audience seemed pleased and I was, as usual, exhausted. I love public speaking for how it drives me to think, explore and learn. I hate it for the nerves and restless nights. But those taxes are just as inevitable as financial ones if you want to reach and nudge lots of people. And I do, for reasons I have never been able to understand. Until two hours later.

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"Why don't you just work with people who accept your work? Why keep working with the hardest cases and try and move them on? Why do the hard job, sticking with the obstinate, rather than finding the amenable and making it easier for yourself?"

The question stopped me in my tracks. My answer surprised even me.

'Because... I'm a teacher.’

My “interrogator" — a smart and wonderful conversationalist who had gracefully skipped two of the conference sessions so that what started as a simple post-talk question could grow into an exciting, challenging and even personal and intimate conversation. In other words, the best kind of conversation. — seemed to need more. I know that I did too.

'And a teacher is drawn to those that need to be taught the most.’

I'd never said that before. Never even consciously thought it. But it hit me with the weight of an epiphany on the same level as Galileo and a hunk of gold in the bath. I closed out the thought,

‘Not for approval, accolades or any form of recognition. Not for ego or from a sense of superiority. Because I learn when I teach. Because a teacher is compelled to help their fellow humans. To lift them up. To do what they can.’

And that’s it. That’s the truest statement of “me” I’ve ever stumbled on. It’s the statement that can help me understand all my choices: what I get up early for and what I do not; what I pour my energies into wilfully and those I keep in reserve or stop entirely; what I love and cherish and what I merely do for a buck.

Everything I do with passion is looking to lift people up. Building software, my books, my contributions to conferences and festivals. It all has a reason that took me almost 49 years and this conversation to unearth.

I love to teach. Not as some sort of patronising pedant with a penchant for putting people in their place. More like a gardener, who hopes to be coaxing and surfacing the best out of a complex, unruly and downright masochistic garden — fairly sure that’s one of the better metaphors for modern organisations.

I’m not a professional teacher, I’ve not got anything like the qualifications. But I teach. I have to. It’s my mode of engagement. It starts with listening deeply to get any sort of grip on where someone is coming from, exploring how they see the world, and then together we look to the next step whatever that may be. That’s me teaching, and I can no more stop it than stop breathing or hammering on this keyboard.

I am inspired to build platforms and all sorts of technology because I am curious and want to teach. I am inspired to write because I teach. I am inspired to speak because I teach. I am inspired to read, and read, and read — because I teach.

I am inspired to be alive because I teach.

This is the closest I’ve ever come to a “big vision” for myself. In the talk I’d just finished in front of a room of 1700 people I’d told them that a “big vision” matters a whole lot less than seeing value in your next experimental step. I still think that is true.

But sometimes a big vision emerges, something true, and in this two hour conversation that happened for me today. Something that will be true for me and true for me always. Not tied to a passing fad or an urgent situation. Something I can grasp and that grasps me. Right now and until I’m long gone.

I think therefore I read, therefore I write, therefore I speak, therefore I listen, therefore I teach, therefore I am. It’s perhaps not as snappy as Descartes, but I’ve been sitting in a Hilton room in Mainz rather than in a room with an oven in Neuburg an der Donau. Poetry may arrive differently at the home of Gutenberg. But realisation… realisation arrives just fine here.

I tell stories, am infatuated with myths, because they teach. Stories can enthral and impart whatever is needed in whatever moment the listener or reader is in. They can help you learn if learning is your thing. They can entertain if you need a distraction. They can bring you back from the edge when nothing else does.

I’m a raconteur because I am compelled to teach. I always discarded myself as just a bit of a show-off. There’s still that in there, but if it was all there was I would have exhausted myself years ago.

At heart, I teach.

Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Russ. I’m a teacher.