A woman told me about a group of inner-city students who visited her country farm. One boy was shocked to see beans growing on a plant. He thought they came from cans.
I frequently do the same thing with manufactured goods. I assume they aren’t made. I assume they just are.
This isn’t about product origins or the need to support fair-trade and sweat-free products. Rather, it’s about what happens to us when we buy more often than we create, and whether such a practice is a bad practice or not.
Muffled thinking
On a recent camping trip, a student and I snaked our way up the long mountain road in my ’91 Toyota pick-up. I dodged potholes, water gullies and cliff edges, but could not avoid the two-inch deep washboard ridges that rattled and shifted us along the way. The constant vibration effect made our conversation sound like two kids talking into a fan on high speed. Then somewhere around mile four, the truck suddenly dropped its voice from tenor to bass. “Baaaaaaaugh,” it droned mournfully. I stopped. There in the reflection of my rearview mirror – fifty feet behind us – lay the tailpipe. It had rattled right off.
When my mechanic told me I needed a whole new exhaust system, I certainly asked about the price. But I never asked where he’d buy the new parts or how they would be manufactured. I assumed he’d get them from a store, made ex nihilo by muffler elves or some other mythical metallurgists.
Then a week later, my friend, Bob, told me he had also taken his car to a repair shop for exhaust work. The man said to him, “Well, you’ll pay a bit more for us to do it, but you should know that the other guy you’re considering bends his own pipes. Do you want to take that risk?”
My jaw dropped and I exclaimed to Bob, “Someone bends tailpipes?!” Here I had just spent $550 on the underbelly of my truck, and I felt like the boy who saw beans on the plant. Why did it shock me to learn that someone actually has to bend tailpipes – that they don’t simply appear in that bent state?
Because I value efficacy over ingenuity when it comes to meeting shopping needs.
Efficacy over Ingenuity
Efficacy is the “capacity for producing a desired result.” Ingenuity is the “skill or cleverness in devising.” Efficacy has more to do with outcome; ingenuity with input and process. When it comes to shopping, I demonstrate the first far more often than the second. In short, I’m more effective at buying everyday solutions than I am ingenious at creating them.
Here is why the tailpipe comment shocked me: When I buy instead of create, I forget that items can be made. For example, I never consider building a luggage rack for our car. I just look for the best-priced version at the store. I don’t research how to grow, thresh and winnow wheat for breakfast. I pick up a box of Wheaties. I don’t go to the trouble of crafting a quill pen and ink when I can order 50 retractable ballpoints from Staples for $10.99 without ever leaving my seat. Mass-produced products exist for nearly every need under the sun. Who needs ingenuity?
I ask this question with tongue-in-cheek, of course. All of us reduce, re-use and recycle in one way or another, some more than others. And we create by baking cakes from scratch or by choosing to design websites instead of adopting pre-made, off-the-shelf templates. Ingenuity is alive for technology buffs, artists and a handful of do-it-yourselfers (Visit Wonder How To if you never want to buy off-the-shelf products again). But not for everyday shoppers.
That’s why I think I’m not alone in this lean toward efficacy. Even in our relatively tight financial times, few people have stopped shopping in order to create. Instead, men have honed their search skills and women have become frugalistas. Bargain-hunting is the new black and we praise our neighbors and friends for finding super deals.
One result of this lean, as I mentioned above, is that we forget products can be made. Buying from the store becomes our default. I don’t like the thought of this practice but I have to ask: Is it bad? Are we out of balance between efficacy and ingenuity or is it okay to favor the former over the latter?
As long as I favor efficacy, I run the risk of losing sight of the pipe bender. I send my own ingenuity into hibernation. I risk becoming a poor steward. On the other hand, God is a productive, resourceful God. God is efficacious and we see this in the miracles of both the Old and New Testament. We continue witnessing it as God provides in our lives today. Miracles and God-given gifts aren’t products, per se, but they produce results which can not be created by the individuals who need them.
We know we reflect God’s ingenuity. Should we equally reflect his efficacy? (Try answering this while watching QVC.)
Questions to ponder:
1. Which way do you lean – toward efficacy or ingenuity?
2. Why is it socially acceptable to create some products from scratch (e.g. cake for your spouse’s birthday) but not others (e.g. aluminum foil/coat hanger antenna for the car)
3. Why do you think the pipe bender was frowned upon by Bob’s mechanic?
Post written by Sam Van Eman of New Breed of Advertisers. Photo by Ann Voskamp. Used with permission.
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Random Acts of Poetry will appear next Friday. Want a prompt? Try this…
Poetry prompt: We’ve been celebrating ’slowing.’ Make a “word pool” of at least five slow words. Yeah, I guess molasses counts. But verbs are good too. Create a poem using a minimum of one of your slow words, but feel free to use the whole pool. Post your poem by Thursday, October 22, for links and possible feature. Drop your post link in LL’s comment box so she doesn’t miss it.
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We are an outcomes-focused culture — get it done, obtain the result, meet the objective. The extreme is “ends justifies the means” and you do what you have to to do to get the result. We preach a good game of creativity and ingenuity but what really matters is, as you suggest, efficacy.
That’s not all bad, though. If I have a broken furnace, I know my own skills and capabilities well enough to call the furnace. Ditto for the car. But there’s a lot of space between efficacy and ingenuity to consider and perhaps experiment. Great, thought-provoking post.
“space between efficacy and ingenuity to consider and perhaps experiment.”
Good visual, Glynn.
i get your point of appreciating what has gone into what we are given, to see the bigger picture of what is behind what i have.
my husband makes wine. he uses the best barrels, which are very expensive and hand made, he knows where they come from. he uses the best fruit, taking ten years to find the right vineyards and even the best block of a vineyard. he uses a certain yeast, and certain ways of making the wine to come out with the best he can make. it cost more than other wines, but, he keeps the price down as much as he can.
many people would rather buy the wine that is the least expensive.
there are a select few that will buy and appreciate peter’s wine.
i was just thinking of my trip to costco two days ago.
that is where i buy my paper products for home and business, but, i do not buy much else there.
i am not sure how that effects the people all along the line of where the product comes from. but, in your story there are many things to be consideded. some of them are very good things to consider. it takes time and creativity just to consider everything that we do and what we use. it also takes caring to make that choice to be considerate.
Efficacy is producing a desired “result,” not a desired “product.” So if the desired result is ingenuity…
by the way…beautiful photo, ann.
nAncY, regarding taking time to consider everything we do: “paralysis of analysis” is always a possible ailment. I mean, who can make it through even one grocery store aisle without compromising his or her convictions? The cost of time, etc., is too great. So we pick our battles.
I think Glynn hit it. It’s good – even healthy- to pick our battles, but we could afford to create more than we do now.
Monica, yes, I played with these same words. Ah, well. That’s why I chose to differentiate with “buying everyday solutions” versus “creating them.” Thanks for tuning in.
I definitely lean toward efficacy. Like you said, I often forget that someone is making and creating what I’m using. I don’t often think about the wonder and intricacy of everything that went into producing what I’m using. As far as why some things are acceptable to create and others not, it probably comes down to someone making a determination of practicality at some point. Some things just aren’t practical to produce on our own. Societies evolved to create specialization and codependency rather than doing everything ourselves. At the same time, some things are enjoyable. Even if you can walk to the grocery store and buy a cake, it may be more enjoyable to you or satisfying to do it yourself.
Good stuff, Chris. My wife and I had an interesting conversation about this. She helped me think about the “why” in three categories:
1. Aesthetic – Good craftsmanship is pleasing to look at, but “jimmy-rigging” is not, even if both accomplish the same task.
2. Environmental – Ingenuity for cause-related reasons (i.e. Green) is admirable; ingenuity because you’re cheap embarrasses teenagers.
3. Societal – My friend, J, has peers who value his creativity and expect him to solve problems like MacGyver would. My friend, G, would be ostracized by the neighborhood.
Can you think of others?
I have to say: Convicted.
I used to be much more into ingenuity…then I grew up, started making more money, had less time. As Nancy points out, it’s less expensive these days to be about the efficacy, too. I know ladies who sew their own clothes. I can buy an entire outfit for half of what it costs them to make a dress. Of course, there are those who hunt for the bargains, stalk the fabric…make frugality a way of life. I think it’s the time factor for me. Time is more valuable than money in my life
(many feel that way, I know.). Sometimes it just takes too long to use my ingenuity.
I’m the other guy with the tailpipe issues. Although I want to weigh in on the larger discussion, I want you to know that I bought the “self-bent” tailpipe, but for the wholly unvirtuous (a-virtuous? ir-virtuous?) . . . unsanctified reason that it was cheaper (in fact, free — the dealer paid for it in full as a warranty item, so long as I bought it from the self-pipe-bending guy). [Where does "cheap" (as in "miserly") come in on the scale of "efficacy" to "ingenuity"?]
On the larger issue, my wife, Laurie, and I are polar opposites when it comes to shopping (and the standard gender roles are probably reversed here) — for me, shopping is a venture into imagining the future; when she shops, she is “on a mission.” When I shop for groceries, for example, I love to take the time to imagine what wonderful combinations of taste, color and smell could be created out of the various food groups displayed for purchase. My ever-efficient wife (who, by the way, does most of the shopping, and cooking, for that matter) simply wants to get what is needed to keep the family alive and reasonably healthy and satisfied for the next week, and get home. Another example: Once upon a time, Laurie and I found ourselves around our local shopping mecca near the Christmas holidays and, mirable dictu!, we had an extra half-hour or so before we had to be where we were going. Just as I was thinking to myself how fun (and for the sake of my wife, how efficient!) it would be for us to look for a few Christmas gifts, she blurted out, “Too bad we can’t go shopping — I don’t have my list.” I was astounded that any human being could entertain such a profoundly distorted thought process. I would no more think of taking a list Christmas shopping than paying for a muffler I could get for free. Because for me, the thrill is in extemporaneously gaining new ideas for “the right gift” by seeing what vendors are offering, and visualizing a creative use or clever package to delight the intended recipient. (Perhaps more precisely stated, I have no ability to plan for the future — I am a guy, after all.) Laurie, on the other hand, is much more adept at pre-visualizing what she wants to buy, and sees shopping simply as a method to “get it done.”
What does this have to do with efficacy vs. ingenuity? Sometimes (and I’m with you, Laura), it’s just simply about the constraints of time. When I need something, and I need it now, I don’t care where it comes from or whether, in some OTHER world, I’d have time to make it myself, MacGyver-like, out of rubber bands, tin foil and spit. But . . . how much more satisfying it is when I DO have the time, and the concomitant luxury of “seeing all things in context” — when I can think about where things come from, how they can be ingeniously used, and whether I, myself, can BE the self-pipe-bending guy who grows muffler pipes from seeds, rather then buying them ready-made from Sears.
Bob, I’m so excited you made it here! Readers, meet my friend Bob. Bob, meet my reading friends.
First, you make me think I should have added a fourth category to my comment above: 4. Personal. You and Laurie vary on the EfficacyIngenuity scale because you have different personalities. At least, that would be one reason.
Second, Laura and you both mentioned Time. I feel Time’s crunch too often and wonder what repercussions it might have on my long-term health. For instance, I have no interest in sewing my own clothes or bending tailpipes, but I can’t remember the last time I built something with tools in my garage.
Perhaps Ingenuity – if it is threatened by extinction in our lives – could be viewed as a spiritual discipline of sorts, where I pick one or two items that I decide never to buy. As crowded as life may get, I protect enough time to create them. (Should I make an exception if they are free?)
Just a thought.