Today my Japanese friend Keitaro asked me what it means to be "driven."

---

Strangely, here I am now, late at night, watching a documentary about one of the most driven and creative individuals in show business and comedy, Conan O'Brien. The documentary isn't all candy and flowers. It explores his darker side as well, and the struggles of working hard and working relentlessly because of a driving passion and real love and enjoyment of one's calling and real, individual gift.

In the documentary, O'Brien is sometimes callous--and what some might even call pompous and cruel--to some of his staffers and team. Of course, this isn't the whole story by a long shot, and some of the kind and compassionate ways he interacts with both fans and his team are pretty touching. But it got me thinking. Is a part of that kind of "edge" and aggressiveness sometimes shown almost a necessity when pursuing a vision to its end? There must be a final decider, yeah? A chief. Otherwise the sea of conflicting opinions and doubts could swallow the vision whole. And turn it into a formless "compromising" mush.

Then again, can't this be achieved in better ways? Not that O'Brien isn't a compassionate or caring person. Thinking beyond any one individual now. Perhaps each visionary must find her or his own style of leadership. I am thinking about the pursuit of goals and vision, and the various balances that might be necessary, and the price of it all. What follows are some of these thoughts.

I should go to bed, but I feel I have something to learn.

I think real drive is natural, working in the same ordered, flexible, non-"ambitious," yet totally unswerving and determined, unrelenting persistence as nature.

---

What does it mean to be "driven"

And what does it mean to have a "bigger vision"?

And...at what cost?

What price does this drive, and its desired accomplishment, exact?

What price does it exact from the leader or visionary, but more importantly, perhaps, the supporters and crew behind the lights?

It often seems, when examining the lives of those who have accomplished much in very visible ways,

such a fine line between seeing a goal to fruition and success

and becoming blindly callous to wants, needs, and feelings of others

and to other things that matter...

Those that have the magic to pull it off,

without walking all over others, but still aggressively refusing to compromise their vision in the face of endless

opinions, objections, "proposals," and doubt,

fascinate me endlessly.

---

---

---

The Conan documentary is fuckin' fantastic, by the way. For those of you performers out there. You'll get it. 100%

~*~

~KafkA

!

---

Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as DTube and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)