BUILD TILL IT BREAKS

October 21st, 2020

Over-planning stems from a a good intention: the hope is to anticipate and sidestep mistakes long before they happen, in fact, before anything even starts.  It’s an impossible ideal for a less obvious reason.

Mistakes and break points in progress function like forced shifts in perspectives.  If for a moment we envision progress as a straight road which suddenly has a bolder blocking the entire road, the problem forces us off the path, and from the side we see the entire venture from an entirely different perspective.  Progress gains an extra dimension every time we have to detour from it.

The forced shit in perspective is of course due to an unforeseen obstacle, which is the more obvious reason why it’s an impossible ideal to plan perfectly.  The road ahead perpetually curves away from view, like a closer horizon, hiding challenges we do best to expect, not in order to avoid but to cherish.

Each change in perspective allots a potential for new angles on how to progress further, how to build better, and inevitably, when things break, reality is revealing the aspect of our work that can raise the quality of the whole if we turn our focus to it.