An observation on 'adequacy'
One thing I've been thinking about quite a bit is the insufficiency of adequacy. It seems like everything these days is either high-end or crap with very little in-between. It's fascinating because most of the truly high-end producers of good and services are so high-end that their clientele can scarcely tell the difference between them and the offerings that are nearly as good as theirs.
Take Ritual coffee, for example. They don't use organic coffee because they have not found organic coffee that meets their quality standards, which are insanely high. Certainly there is excellent organic coffee out there, but it may not fall in the top .5% of coffees when it comes to flavor. So it isn't used. Would their customers balk at the flavors produced by the 99-percentile organic coffee? No.
While of course the distribution of quality in the world is represented by by people adhering a spectrum of discernment and someone statistically must take the very top, things seem oddly out of balance. Even low-end goods cannot seem to stand admitting that they are adequate. I see gas stations claim their coffees are 'gourmet'. They aren't. Why claim to be? Gas station coffee is meant to keep you cracked out so you can make it to your destination alive. That's a noble goal, certainly, and I wish they'd fess up to it.
In other aspects of life I've found it difficult to find services and goods that are "good" or "adequate". To some extent this is what I feel called to offer the world: truly utilitarian goods and services that make compromises in the right places.
To some extent, I think, it requires a master craftsman to know where compromises can be made. In audio one does not need to use top-shelf microphones for everything, for example. To know what aspects of a recording require uncompromising detail and which can tolerate or even be better represented by blunt instruments is a skill that must be honed with experience.
A master can identify the most critical aspects of work and ensure that they receive the focus of energy in the creative process.
This stuff almost to some extent parallels the observation that the middle-class is dissolving. Perhaps these are the people who produced the demand for "adequate" goods...
Take Ritual coffee, for example. They don't use organic coffee because they have not found organic coffee that meets their quality standards, which are insanely high. Certainly there is excellent organic coffee out there, but it may not fall in the top .5% of coffees when it comes to flavor. So it isn't used. Would their customers balk at the flavors produced by the 99-percentile organic coffee? No.
While of course the distribution of quality in the world is represented by by people adhering a spectrum of discernment and someone statistically must take the very top, things seem oddly out of balance. Even low-end goods cannot seem to stand admitting that they are adequate. I see gas stations claim their coffees are 'gourmet'. They aren't. Why claim to be? Gas station coffee is meant to keep you cracked out so you can make it to your destination alive. That's a noble goal, certainly, and I wish they'd fess up to it.
In other aspects of life I've found it difficult to find services and goods that are "good" or "adequate". To some extent this is what I feel called to offer the world: truly utilitarian goods and services that make compromises in the right places.
To some extent, I think, it requires a master craftsman to know where compromises can be made. In audio one does not need to use top-shelf microphones for everything, for example. To know what aspects of a recording require uncompromising detail and which can tolerate or even be better represented by blunt instruments is a skill that must be honed with experience.
A master can identify the most critical aspects of work and ensure that they receive the focus of energy in the creative process.
This stuff almost to some extent parallels the observation that the middle-class is dissolving. Perhaps these are the people who produced the demand for "adequate" goods...