Beyond the technical

What's played is a guitar, yet what's heard is music. What's written is code, yet what's used is software. What's given is a speech, yet what's received is inspiration. The bridge from guitar to music, code to software, speech to inspiration, is imagination. Yet we tend to fixate on technical skills alone.

The physical manifestation of an idea in the form of playing the guitar, or writing code, or delivering a speech, is the technical aspect. Technique is what we usually practice. However, also important is the imagination aspect, which is the underlying musical idea, or the product idea, or the actual message behind spoken words.

Imagination is neither emphasised, nor practiced; we grow unhappier despite continous learning, because we never learn to apply.