I was in Marrakech recently. Loved it. No drunken stags and hens, just warm and friendly locals and tourists.
During a walk one day through the searing heat along one of the bustling main streets to the central square (Jemaa el-Fnaa) navigating through all the usual street vendors, tourists, hustlers, and beggars (side note: the beggars offered something in return; small packets of tissues in particular), apart from all of this constant moving mass of kinetic energy… I saw god…
Wait. What? No, I haven’t found religion. I found a metaphor. The most beautiful metaphor. A metaphor that I’ve been searching for, potentially my whole life without ever realising it.
A young boy, maybe eight or nine years of age, sat on the ground in the midst of the apparent chaos of this fantastically busy walkway. A little boy with no shoes and a dust covered face. Perfectly calm and composed he laid out the cheapest blue plastic train set in a small space that he’d claimed for himself (somehow).
I watched him for maybe thirty seconds, just a moment. A snapshot in time. I couldn’t help but notice his stillness against the transient chaos.
He meticulously laid out the train set; there were three small boxes stacked into a small pyramid, each containing the packaged version of the demonstration train set that he was setting up ready for sale. He nudged the boxes until they were perfectly aligned. Eyes fixed, eyes wide, purpose beaming like lasers into the micrometers of perfection.
He moved his attention to the blue plastic track oblivious to the world around him. So gently he aligned the long side of the oval in parallel to the display of the stacked boxes. Thousands of people must have walked by in this time. His attention, his unwavering focus and care, his love - in spite of the almost overbearing stimulus around him, shone like a super nova. It was glorious. For thirty seconds it was everything. It was the details. Nothing but the details.
It was the things that most people would never notice. The things that gave him pleasure, that showed him that he could be the best version of himself. The things that would give him the best opportunity of competing fairly with the myriad of competitors on this overcrowded walkway. The time he created. The space he created. The dedication to his own view of perfection. The details.
The devil is not in the details. God is. It’s love that’s in the details. It’s embedding love into the things that we do that turns makers into crafts people. That turns designers and musicians into artists. That transforms words into poetry. It’s what makes people care about what you do. Its infectious. It’s noticeable. And the best part of it - it’s effortless.
I wish I could capture and explain the moment better. It’s everything that I believe that the world and industry needs right now. Shifting focus from “the devil is in the details” to “love is in the details” is a shift to optimism.