Consciously or unconsciously, we all know that for quality, quantity matters. The two are not mutually exclusive but complementary. Without quantity, we can’t achieve quality. As such, what makes anyone an expert and allows them to achieve excellence requires, at least as a fundamental condition, quantity.
You have to do it a lot to pursue excellence. We are all familiar with the 10,000-hour rule, as Malcolm Gladwell explained in his book Outliers. The same author also introduced the concept of tipping points. As we quantify, there should be a certain threshold where something transforms into something else qualitatively. This threshold elevates us to the next level, which is qualitatively different from the previous one.
Consider simple phenomena like the transformation of ice to water to steam in physics, the stages of childhood to adolescence to adulthood, and even the transition from life to death as a transformation of existence. When we die, perhaps our form of existence changes into something different.
The message here is clear: you can’t master anything unless and until you spend enough time on it. Rarely, there are geniuses who master something in a short period of time. We often hear of gifted children who achieve expert levels at a very young age. For instance, child pianists play complex pieces, child painters create stunning artworks, and child mathematicians become professors.
While these stories are amazing, for most of us, quantity still matters. The length of life you devote to a craft shapes the mastery you achieve. You may master a skillset in one year, but this doesn’t dismiss the decades spent perfecting it. Mastering a skill is different from living with it throughout your life. The extraordinary skills of a young pianist may resemble technological advancement in how they mimic ability. This is different from the “skillfulness” of seasoned pianists who have reinvented themselves over a lifetime. Both are not only qualitatively but also existentially different.
Lessons from Hokusai and Picasso
The truth is that the higher you climb in any domain, the more you realize how much more there is to learn. Mastering skillsets is qualitatively different from spending a lifetime perfecting them. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is real: the more you learn, the more you realize how far you are from perfection. Logically, perfection is unattainable because the closer you come to it, the more you realize its infinite nature. This is why we speak of “lifetime commitment.” If you love something, you live with it, knowing you may never perfect it—and that’s fine. The joy lies in the journey and the lifelong companionship with your craft.
In this reflection, I always recall a statement by Hokusai Katsushika (葛飾北斎 1760–1849), the Japanese ukiyo-e painter best known for Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景), which includes the iconic The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏). Reflecting on his life, Hokusai said:
From the age of six, I had the habit of sketching things I saw around me. By the time I was 50, I had published numerous designs, yet all that I produced before the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75, I began to grasp the structures of birds, animals, insects, and fish, and the way trees and plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them by the time I am 80. At 90, I will enter into their essence, and at 100, perhaps, I will have truly reached the level of the marvelous and divine. When I am 110, each dot and each line will possess a life of its own.
Hokusai carried paper and a brush almost literally 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. He seized every moment to draw whatever caught his attention. As one of the most prolific artists in history, he is believed to have created over 30,000 artworks.
His work, with its dynamic compositions, bold colors, and stunning perspectives, influenced 19th-century Western artists, especially the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists like Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet. Yet in terms of “attitude,” I feel a deeper connection with Picasso. Once, Picasso was asked which of his artworks was his best. He replied:
My best work is the next one.
This response reflects not a certainty that the next work would be superior but a refusal to settle for past achievements. Picasso, even in his later years, remained committed to continuous creation. For both Hokusai and Picasso, quantity was not a means to quality; it was a natural result of their relentless passion for creating.
The Role of Freewriting and Creativity
They were unafraid of generating “garbage.” Perhaps they knew, consciously or through experience, that excellence emerges from the piles of “garbage” they produced—though even their “garbage” could be extraordinary to us. A pearl forms from years of layers around a grain of sand, and gold miners sift through mountains of sand for a tiny grain of gold.
This analogy reminds me of Peter Elbow, author of Writing with Power and Writing without Teachers, who pioneered the freewriting method. In freewriting or journaling, the key is to keep writing, even if you feel you’re producing garbage. Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way, calls this practice “Morning Pages,” describing it as a way to drain or cleanse the mind and heart. Without this “garbage,” there is no creativity. Without quantity, there is no qualitative leap.
A Growth Mindset for Life and Learning
Hokusai and Picasso exemplify an extreme growth mindset. Life is too short to master anything completely. But this realization doesn’t have to make us pessimistic. Mahatma Gandhi offers a hopeful perspective:
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
If we approach daily writing—or any lifelong commitment—with this mindset, we can live and learn with purpose.
Do it as if you were to die tomorrow, yet learn as if you were to live forever. Both Hokusai and Picasso seemed to believe they could live forever. They lived long lives, treating each day as a lifetime. How ideal it would be to live as they did.
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