work = f(creativity, proclivity)

 As an engineer, one of the most crucial questions I address is “How do things work?”, the discipline is often looked upon as the one which builds itself upon a series of instructions that, when followed in a prescribed manner allows an expected result to show up. The consonance between the ordinance and the execution is set forth by the genius of a “designer” and the math of an “engineer”.

James Dyson, the British inventor best known for the invention of the dual bagless vacuum cleaner which works on the principle of cyclonic separation a method wherein the dust particles and air are separated through vortex separation rather than the use of filters, once famously said that all his engineers are designers and all his designers are engineers.

Simple, right? A bit of math and physics, and kaboom you have the magic. So where does that out-of-the-box thinking come from that allowed us to save a handsome sum by eliminating the use of garbage bags for house-cleaning purposes? The entire premise of engineering is not just an emphasis on “how” but also the “why”. It’s the applicative orientation of it that tends to gauge the “how” and sheds light on the outcome. To answer the “why” one needs to understand that engineering is a craft of science and not just a profession.

Before discussing engineers and their artistic inclinations, let’s talk about their one true love, “machine”. The machine is a harmony. One of its most noticeable virtues is that it’s a composition of entirely independent sets of commands that are put together by a designer to perform a task. The task is often governed by the doctrine set forth by the designer but its utility, well that’s in the hand of the customer. The “Utility” of a designed component or a machine is multifaceted. Common sense is the only prerequisite required to forge a misalignment between the task and utility. Yes, common sense, is the knowledge gained by us through experience. We as engineers love people who are blessed with common sense, though being stated common it’s seldomly found. Though the engineers seem to prophesize the service of their design, rather it’s the customer that christens its purpose of existence.

A lot of ink has been spilled to discuss the limitations set forth by the process via which a designer transmutes oneself from a naïve student to an industry professional, but that’s not the center of my disquisition here nor is the psychological impact of product design.

The problem is that very few engineers are designers or have the time or the resource to become one and the system many a time pushes them into a life wherein all their knowledge acquired seems to have no outlet to be creative. To draw you an idea you might have heard of a doctor “practicing medicine”, or a “performing artist”, but what’s the verbal noun to associate with the lovers of physics and differential equations? “Build”, perhaps? I will leave this question to you. There is an abundance of tools that one can take in hand to build. A writer resorts to words, an engineer to math. The balance between knowledge and skill is essential for mastery and creativity. This reminds me of a famous quote by Walter Gropius, the pioneering master of modernist architecture, “Architecture begins, where engineering ends.”

Creativity is undoubtedly an opinion, a choice. An element so crucial in one’s life, not just in a career but even in our life’s socks. The little things done with flair and ardent passion make us smile like a Cheshire cat. It’s not the loudness but the humility of the act that augments our perspective to work. It demands patience and receptiveness, asking us to still our ego and look outward instead of inward.

Though in some fields might be direct and obvious like operating a tool or machine or creating something physical. In others, it’s a mix of physical and mental, such as collecting specimens for Charles Darwin or arranging elements in a table like Dmitri Mendeleev, or a lot more nebulous, such as handling people or researching and organizing information. Regardless it’s our onus to bring our attitude toward work on a pedestal and question, “What’s the thread that ties the knot between creativity and proclivity for me?”.

The answer to this question is the pressing need of the hour for the industry. The advent of open-source AI does put the jobs of many on the edge of the sword, and it’s not the first time that we are facing such a shift in the paradigm, a change in the wind always demands the mast to be adjusted so as the ship stays afloat, it’s just that the winds this time are a lot violent than at any other instance on this voyage of Anthropocene, thus we better put our minds to work and have on this ship a community of creators and not just practitioners or else we might not be able to beat Sam Altman and denounce his words for Indian entrepreneurs "The way this works is, we're going to tell you. It's totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models. You shouldn't try, and it's your job to like trying anyway. And I believe both of those things. I think it is pretty hopeless."

Anyone can become an expert at anything in six months, whether it is hydrodynamics for boats or cyclonic systems for vacuum cleaners.