The Sixteen Year Smile
A quiet pursuit of mastery.
I’m thinking lately about the relationship between the apprentice and the master—curious in particular as to when one becomes the other, and what it means, if anything, to make the transition complete.
In the days of the Italian Renaissance, apprenticeships were commonplace across various arts and crafts guilds. They began at an early age and often lasted a period of roughly 5-10 years, which, in accordance with the 10,000-hour principle1, lines up perfectly in timing.
That is to say, a person who accomplishes approximately 2–3 hours of concentrated work every single day for a span of 10 years could—and can—become a master of their craft; the key word, of course, being ‘concentrated’ work. For practice, it seems, counts only when deliberate, which is why our own progress cannot simply be measured by time clocked-in.
To achieve mastery is what I believe to be the great pursuit of life—be it through an outward craft or in one’s relationship to himself, which naturally bleeds into his relationships with others. And the two might very well go hand in hand.
It is important, however, to acknowledge that mastery is not the end of the road—it becomes only a refined means of walking it.
In the year of 1503, the great Leonardo da Vinci, then age 51, began work on what some consider to be the world’s greatest piece of art, the Mona Lisa. And while she and her smile are undoubtedly known to all, I’ve only recently learned that she is the result of sixteen years of effort, perhaps remaining to this day a work in progress, since the painting was discovered among Leonardo’s belongings at the time of his death.
Yes, that’s sixteen years Leonardo spent refining his last great work. And he was already a master when he began.
Is it not shameful, then, that our world today is governed by such a sense of urgency? These are times of ‘act now or perish’ conditioning—often manufactured with a profit motive—applying at the macro level to global crises, and at the micro level, to advertisements and limited time sales offers.
Would not a better message be to act today and act tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day after that?
What falls apart in the world of ‘now’ is that we lose sight of mankind’s great master taking sixteen years to himself produce a master work of art. Today, a man embarks on new paths and expects to strike gold quickly. When the payoff does not come immediately, he jumps away, like a frog on a lily pad—hopping from one thing to the next, fearful of remaining lest the ground upon which he stands sinks beneath.
It is with this in mind that I am thinking in terms of being the apprentice of my own life and work. On darker days, it helps to make struggled efforts more palatable; and often, I must force myself to remember that the path of progress is by no means sexy.
Even a master may need sixteen years to reveal the light of a smile.
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (Little, Brown and Company, 2008).