While working on an opportunity space project awhile back, I was challenged with understanding what women want out of life. Seriously. My team analyzed hours upon hours of observation video, conducted secondary research into products and services that provide a sense of balance in life, and talked to women about their daily unmet needs for happiness. Family, work, alone time, those never-ending lists...it had all gotten wildly out of whack, it seemed. And there was an opportunity, somewhere in all this mess, to help women be more aware of themselves and achieve some sort of victorious equilibrium. We did a pretty good job.
But what I realized along the way had less to do with women and their particular modern needs, and more to do with an ancient human desire to transform the very nature of life. And to do this, we resort to some pretty unnatural methods. I call this existential alchemy. Existential alchemy is the belief that even though we failed miserably to create the life we wanted, we can somehow rally the magical energy to completely reinvent our experience going froward. But too often, we think this absolves us of having to change ourselves.
Overwhelmed by the fact that you have three kids, work late every night to pay a mortgage you can't really afford, and come home to a husband that just isn't funny anymore? Well, you're being told every day by the products and services of a false existentially alchemic market, that you can still have it all. You can transform your daily routine with a new kind of frozen fruit drink, get 6-pack abs without getting off the couch, get rich working from home for 2 hours a day, "I DID!"
You see, a traditional alchemist believed that they could transform shitty elements into awesome elements, lead into gold, through sheer human will and intelligence. They spent an unbelievable amount of effort trying to make this happen, and even more effort trying to market the idea to their kings and merchants. They needed funding, and they needed people to believe that they would someday, despite repeated epic failures, actually succeed in creating this chemical utopia where everything could be turned into gold. Little thought seemed to be put into realizing that the rarity of gold is the only reason it's valued in the first place. It's far easier and more effective to do what DeBeers does and play the alchemic side of supply and demand perceptions than to mess with matter itself.
But really, I admire the aspirations of material alchemy. They really went after it. And in the process, created some incredibly beautiful, intellectual pursuits, and grew some epic beards. They made some leaps of faith in their understanding of the world. Where today's approach to existential alchemy falls far short is in the ugly, have-assed nature of our pursuit. The guy living in his parents' basement wearing a team-speak headset all day, chugging the Dew and working a bag of Doritos is failing to uphold the true meaning of his alchemic aspirations. Rather than elevating the principles of his existence through his imagination and magical CGI technologies, he's degrading his original physical and emotional psyche into a sad pile. He's no alchemist. He's like the foolish king that held up gold-painted lead like an easily amazed child.
True existential alchemy is a much finer thing indeed. For anyone that ever made fun of "Ren-faire" fans, this one's going to hurt. These Scottish men aren't on the subway every morning drinking an energy drink called "Fire Leaper" or logging on to a massive multiplayer site to craft their avatar into a mead-drinking viking while they eat a Whopper. These badasses are heading north into the Highlands and transforming their lives into something barely recognizable as modern human experience.
And the best part is that they don't get bored around three in the morning and turn the Xbox off. Sigh. These guys get to live with the satisfaction that they actually make this happen of their own fruition. They marched through the streets with torches, they clashed wrought iron swords together, they rode horses through fucking fire. And before you get concerned that these dudes might be losing their minds, ask yourself, "do vikings make better lovers?" You bet they do.
It's hard for some people to tell where responsibility for life's limitations truly lies. Are my life's disappointments my own fault? My family's? My community's? My country's? Humanity's? If I can't get out of work on time to make it to the dry cleaner before it closes, and my over-consumption of diet Coke is eating away at my brain's ability to process emotion, is it okay that I blame the system?
And just in case you're still missing the point: the female equivalent of the Feast of Saint Anthony the Great is not a Sex and the City party. You might want to consider setting something really big on fire and contemplating what you really want out of life, because the true existential alchemy you're after usually requires more from you, not less, and it won't fit in your purse. Do something meaningful, and difficult, and awesome.
I'm an Interaction Design Lead at a renowned innovation firm in Chicago. I've worked as a writer, strategist and general disseminator of anticipatory design science for a wide variety of industries and clients.
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