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~ focus on the little picture |
Ever had someone tell you that you were not seeing the big picture, or that you have to focus on the big picture?
Another way of life is to ignore this absurd advice, and focus on the little picture.
Take Hollywood as an example. They are composed of several 1 and a half hour movies, and they make billions of dollars. They are just one and a half hour little pictures, not a big picture that goes on like a Soap Opera for 10-20 years. Indeed they put a lot of effort into movies so some would see them as a big picture - but come on, they are 2 hours long, sometimes 1.5 hours, sometimes 2.5 hours. That is not a big picture. It's a little 2 hour scene. Lots of work put into that little picture, but it's still a little picture.
Focus on the big picture too much and you end up with featuritis - way too many ideas, not enough time to implement. Cut it down into a little picture and you actually have a chance of completing the project, whatever it be: a story, a software project, a business, a meal to cook.
Indeed big pictures are successful. Companies like Microsoft see a big huge picture and make millions of dollars on the big picture. But I do not envy the person that has to go home at night thinking about the millions of things Microsoft has to worry about tomorrow morning. TV Series like the Simpsons seem to see the big picture: there show goes on for years, it is not a little 1.5 hour movie that makes millions, but rather a show that goes on and on. I'm not suggesting that "big picture" is a failed way of going about a project, but just offering an alternative: see the little picture. And even a little picture could take a lot of effort, and return a lot of success. It could even fail.
But if some twat tells you to see the big picture in such and such, you might want to tell him to fuck off, or gently inform him of the little picture philosophy.
There are some disadvantages to "the little picture" philosophy. One is that sometimes I feel short changed when I see a 1.5 hour movie, and wished it was a TV series that went on longer, such as the Prison Break tv series which seemed to just go on and on. Also the little picture view at the end may be disappointing: you might end up with a text editor like Nano or Pico with no way to extend it, or you might end up even with a 30 minute show instead of a 2.5 hour movie. Or you might write an Essay, instead of writing a book, which is a bigger picture.
I'd hate to say there is something in between because I prefer to keep it as little picture or bigger picture, in a binary state. Medium picture just doesn't really sound enthusiastic or meaningful. One way to look at it is if you see the big picture and you are not completing the project, then it is time to transfer over to the little picture view. And vice versa if the project is just too small to have any success.
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