Brian Eno, long-time composer and musician, has a philosophy about music that he sums up as “surrender.” At the moment of surrender, the listener acknowledges that the piece, not themselves, is in control. According to Eno, crossing this threshold is the point at which you’ve created something special.
Surrender is an active choice not to take control. It is an active choice to be part of the flow of something. We are good at surrender situations.
He takes the theory further to assert that when you consider some of the realms of human experience that we covet most: art, sex, drugs, religion … surrender is the thread that binds them all. We crave when we can ultimately bestow control to some other force. We are, apparently, physically engineered to lose ourselves in something else.
The paradox in this of course is that we worship control. We dignify power and autonomy and those that wield it. And we consistently seek this same level of authority over our own lives. The paradox is only intensified by our regular dismissal of people and ideas that surrender. Expressions of surrender or submission in every day life are considered forms of weakness.
The products we use seem to dignify this same control ideal. Since listening to Eno’s talk, I’ve found myself categorizing services I use by whether they optimize for control or surrender. Mailbox gives me control over who and when I respond to email. Instagram literally offers filters to control how I view the world I am experiencing. Instapaper lets me control when and what I read in the format of my choosing. IFTTT allows me to control interactions between services that the services themselves have yet to consider. Almost all of the products I use not only afford control, but communicate it as the sole value they offer.
But if the human experiences we delight in most are where we ultimately surrender, then why are products we use so insistent on giving us more control? Why do we seemingly seek a controlled and refined human experience instead of an honest, raw relationship with the world around us?
This is something I’m grappling with, but I have a few initial thoughts:
Information has become easier & harder: The increased availability of data and the infrastructure of the internet have done two things. It’s created a wealth of information with which to harness for more varied and dynamic experiences. Maybe these products are resting on the underlying assumption that a textured experience is a better one. The other thing that has happened, due to the same wealth of available information, is that its become harder to derive signal from noise. To accurately tag, store and retrieve data to present back to a user in meaningful ways has become a great and growing technical challenge. I think many of the products we use are, without necessarily knowing it, solving for this problem first and foremost.
We’re overindulged: Expectations have risen for personalization and contextualization:
It seems it’s no longer good enough that content be intelligent; you need to consider the nuance that dials your message to an audience in their context. Partly in response to the deluge of new information available, there is a growing expectation that its being used. The catch is that because the tech isn’t fully there, it requires our participation. Certainly not zero sum, but in seeking context we forefront complexity, slowly stripping out the delight that lives in the simple.
In taking inventory, I don’t see many pure surrender experiences any more (though Electric Objects is a decent example). Maybe in between, there is an interesting space where the blend of control and surrender can unlock unique potential. In other words, how are surrender experiences made more immersive by providing for an initial form of control. Take Treehouse by Interlude. They’re taking a medium that is entirely passive and surrendering, video, and marrying it with choice to create a more engaging dynamic. If they’re an indication of whats ahead, that future is exciting. Eno talked a bit about this confluence:
A good analogy is surfing … when you watch someone surfing … they take control momentarily. They situate themselves on a wave and then they surrender … they’re carried along by it. And then they take control again. and then they surrender.
Maybe we are in store for more blended experiences like Treehouse, though not a small challenge to strike the balance between these extremes without imbuing complexity.
Eno’s concept of surrender has shifted how I think about product, and its become in many cases a first filter when I try new technologies. For product builders, there might be great hidden value in optimizing for it. It may just be that creating engaging experiences isn’t by granting control, but by taking it away, by allowing people to fully immerse themselves in your product by losing themselves in it.
