“If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor.”

From the archives, July 2023.

Welcome to my 20 new readers! I am thrilled to have you here, and if you do not enjoy what you have signed up for, please blame the friend that roped you into my pyramid scheme.

I have taken to describing myself as a lapsed academic. My interests in life haven’t really changed, so much as how I have chosen to engage with them. But every now and then a job advertisement lands in my inbox and I think, Oh I would love that kind of job. This happened yesterday, when The Centre for the Less Good Idea sent out their call for applications to be their Impresario.

Impresario is an old-fashioned word for someone that organizes cultural events. If, like me, you were raised on The Sound of Music, you will know the word from reference to Max Detweiler, friend of the Captain and the Impresario who organized the choir competition in which the Family Von Trapp sang. The word Impresario alone made me want to apply for the job.

Recently I managed to watch almost the entire film with my kids (they loved it, proof that I am their mother, Yodel-Lay-Hee-Hoo), but try explaining the Austrian Anschluss to a 4 & 5 year old, and who Hitler was, and you’ll realise it is best to stop the film at Maria and the Captain’s wedding and call it a happily ever after. At least until they start understanding the concept of history, and then you can pull the rug out from under them.

Aside, aside.

After reading the email I started imagining a life for myself on the cutting edge of the Joburg art scene; organizing cultural programmes, public education initiatives for artistic and cultural literacy, book discussion groups. But as I have zero experience in, or knowledge of, curation, I let this daydream go by the time I had to make supper. But it was a pleasant 45 minutes.

The Centre for the Less Good Idea was started in 2016 by William Kentridge and Bronwyn Lace, “a space for responsive thinking through experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary arts practices based in Maboneng, Johannesburg”. They have a great programme and you should look them up. This video on the making of The Head & the Load is definitely worth watching. (My friends and I nerded out on it after going to watch this astounding production.)

“The amusing and grammatically awkward Tswana proverb (translated by the great Sol Plaatjie in his book of 732 Setswana proverbs in 1916): “If the good doctor can’t cure you, find the less good doctor,” goes a long way to describing the interests at The Centre. Secondary pursuits and collective and collaborative artistic process is celebrated at The Centre and it is that to which it gives its attention and resources.”

I love the idea of centring Secondary Pursuits. It encapsulates the milieu of my life right now. Writing, reading, revelling in everyday delights, cultivating a sense of awe. So often we feel the need to pursue The Right Path, to do things in The Correct Way, The Ambitious Way, The Clear Way. But maybe, when that doesn’t work out, when being the good doctor can’t cure you, it is time to “find the less good doctor”. Maybe a counterintuitive direction will bring you closer to your heart’s vocation.

Yours,

The Less Good Dr. Hannah Botsis