On Synergy and Serendipity

also sausages

It’s still August, which means we’re still in our curiosity rabbit hole. 

Which, to be fair--and exact-- is more of a warren. We didn’t just stumble into an opening that shoved us straight down into an alternate universe, as lore would imply. 

Real rabbit holes lead to warrens: hollowed out burrows connected by a series of tunnels. Most burrows have multiple tunnels leading into and out of them. There are far fewer passageways which open above ground than into the labyrinthine underground network.

Translation: it’s not a straight line with a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s more like a web or neural network. Some spaces are for lingering and others channels are for moving from one space to another. 

So what does this have to do with curiosity? 

In ye olde days, back in the dark ages when we didn’t have access to the sum total of all human knowledge at our fingertips, the search for information required work, at the very least possession of a set of encyclopedias, but more likely, access to a library and card catalog was necessary. 

The small amount of research regarding rabbit habitats I did to get me thus far in this essay would’ve taken several volumes of an encyclopedia: R for rabbit, W for warren, C for Lewis Carrol or maybe A for Alice in Wonderland. Would I have gotten anywhere with U for underground animals?  And what treasures would I have found along the way?

However, today it was mere keystrokes and mouse clicks which delivered everything I ever wanted to know about subterranean rabbit dwellings from cartoon drawings to scientific papers to videos and documentaries.

Does that make effort either more valuable? Does working harder for the information make me more likely to retain the information longer? Is there an Ikea Affect for information? 

What happens when some of the things we’re curious about collide?

Synergy happens when two more discrete entities interact. The result is greater than the sum of their parts: think tomato and basil, chocolate and hazelnut, Fleetwood Mac, an orchestra, chocolate and orange, a smart phone and the internet, the Indigo Girls. Synergy is great. It’s awesome. It’s easy and dynamic.¹ Slap a bunch of things together and hope for the best.

Serendipity, on the other hand, takes a little more work. Serendipity has a reputation as being merely a happy accident. But that’s only half of the story. Real serendipity requires a little work. 

We’ll back up for a minute to talk about the origin of the word. It was coined by British neologist and writer Horace Walpole. He took his inspiration from an Italian fairy tale/detective story about three highly educated brothers banished by their father the king, and forced to make their way in the world. Think ancient Persian/Sherlock vibe set in Sri Lanka.  In a 1754 letter, Walpole calls ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’ a ‘silly fairy tale’, but also: ‘as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of …”

They weren’t just sitting around on their thrones eating pomegranates and slurping honey. They were exploring, adventuring and making their way, engaging with the world around them, applying what they already knew. 

Serendipity is Steve Jobs having audited a calligraphy class in his early 20’s and drawing on that knowledge for the fonts and screen design in his original Apple computers. 

Serendipity is Alexander Fleming returning to his lab after vacation in 1928 to discover one of his petri dishes had been left uncovered. Mold spores from a nearby lab found their way in and destroyed the bacteria that had been present. Viola!Penicillin. 

Serendipity is Irving, chatting his way through the meat packing plant as he pushed a cartload of hot dogs from the grinding room to the smokehouse. He retired when the company built a new state-of-the-art plant across town. The sausage in the new place was an inferior product. For 18 months the company tested different hypotheses as to why, everything from the quality of the water to the temperature of the smokehouse. One night over drinks, the crew started reminiscing about days in the old factory when they brought up Irving. Everybody knew and loved him. He loved everybody and always had time to talk on his trips through the plant. The new building was efficiently designed for the meat to go directly from the cold room into the smoker, eliminating the time-consuming sausage delivery. They realized that those loquacious and circuitous walks through warm areas of the plant brought the temperature of the meat up just prior to smoking. That gave the sausage its signature texture and color. Not only was Irving’s walk serendipitous, but the discovery of the secret was as well.²

Serendipity doesn’t just happen, one must put oneself in its path. One must do things. One must know things. One must learn things. One must try things. 

One must be curious.

“…always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of …” 

Accident is only one part of the equation. There is also discovery and sagacity. 

To be sagacious, one must be wise and discerning. 

To discover (especially “that which they were not in quest of”) one must look around to see what they can find. One must explore, to see what they may learn.

One must be curious. 

Be curious.

What if one’s curiosities could be connected, the way burrows in a giant warren are joined through a myriad of tunnels, constantly exchanging and sharing resources and information.

What sort of serendipity would one be opening themselves up to, I wonder?

1. Unfortunately, it lost a lot of street cred when the concept became a buzzword in the world of finance. Think mergers and acquisitions, franchising, CVS inside of Target.

2. For more on this, listen or read here, scroll down to Act 14. Better yet, just listen to the whole episode.