INFINITE FACETS

November 11th, 2020

For anyone who has read or listened to a good chunk of what this platform offers will notice trends in topic.  Episodes, or posts tend to orbit the same concepts.  Indeed for some -god forbid- it might even seem repetitive.  The goal isn’t to bang anyone over the head with the same thing so much as it is two other insidious goals that are far more difficult: to find a better way to convey an idea and to perhaps find the slippery and subtle nuance that will resonate deeply with each individual person.  What makes sense to one is gibberish to another, and what sounds common place to many might be golden insight for one.

It’s always a fresh astonishment when a reader reaches out about an episode that felt mediocre.  “I hope you made the gesture of a chef’s kiss when you hit send on that episode!” One reader recently wrote in response to an episode that had me questioning my ability to write well in the first place.

Every topic out there has virtually an infinite set of ways that it can be treated, described, and explored.    Certainly not all are worthwhile.  Any random set of words could be claimed to be a treatment of any one topic, though such a whimsical association does little if any good beyond being pedantic about this notion of there being infinite facets to every topic.  

Writing in this way is much like spending time with someone you know quite well.  No matter how well you know someone, no matter how much mutual time has been spent, there is always infinite surprise buzzing beneath the surface of every person.  Though it’s the same person, there’s simply no way to know exactly what subtle shade and nuance of their being will express itself to us in that sweet moment of merely connecting with another.

Even more important is that familiarity can breed the magic of synergy, producing results that are continually better through time.  This is obvious within the realm of writing when we move through drafts of a single piece of writing.  Sometimes it takes a hundred readings before a simple fix makes a sentence shine beautifully. 

We need only extrapolate this to pieces of writing all revolving around the same topic.  Who knows what will emerge on the next pass.

HEADY ITEM

November 10th, 2020

Imagine looking at your to-do list and seeing the item: start a business.  Few people are perhaps likely to put such a heady item on their to-do list, but the point here is to illuminate the potency of the tasks we delegate to ourselves, and what sort of correlation -if any- exists between the difficulty of the task and the likelihood that it actually gets done.

There is a further distinction to be made.  Certainly there must be difficult things on the lists -written or not- of every person who wishes to grow, otherwise such growth just doesn’t happen.    We need difficulty and challenge in order to expand our abilities.  But difficulty isn’t necessarily correlated with specificity - which is a far more important metric regarding the tasks we assign ourselves.  

Specific is good.  Difficult doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about our ability to get it done.  Difficult and vague is far more challenging than a task that’s difficult and specific.  A hazy task offers many different possible directions for starting, whereas specific narrows this task considerably, raising the chances that progress will actually happen.

The perennial question arises: which way to go?  Which direction is likely to be bring about the the successful conclusion of our goals fastest?

Apply these questions to that original heady to-do item: start a business, and they don’t necessarily winnow the field down to a consideration that’s more efficient.  A bizarrely specific question that applies generally is more useful: What is the first aspect of this task that can be narrowed with a question?

Or rather: where is the thin edge of the wedge?  How do we slice off the first thin bit of the problem where meaningful progress can be made?

Further, we can ask: what sort of businesses actually exist?  And from here we can further specify to: what sort of structures exist that would be most in line with the sort of life we wish to lead.

These sorts questions take a huge topic and cordon off huge portions of possible answers the fastest - which is exactly what we need in order to make progress.  Larger steps in the beginning lead to the right small steps in the end.  Small steps in the beginning are likely to lead to a lot of wasted time when we eventually realize we’ve been making small steps in the wrong territory and the wrong direction and suddenly need to abandon all that effort time spent.

Heady items on the to-do list are best modified by a good starter question that cracks the egg and gets things rolling.  Best to first the most specific way to eliminate as much of the subject as possible.

THE STUDENT

November 9th, 2020

There’s nothing quite like getting slapped in the face by reality.  The wake up call, the reality check, the humbled grounding.  Despite the aggressive way this experience is described, and as brutal as it can feel, we refer to this same thing as the best teacher.  This is either a comment on the potential nullity of our teachers, or it’s perhaps not the best way to describe the role of reality.  

Anyone who has been a teacher knows that students can be quite a handful, coming with their own particular understanding, stubbornness and perspective about what to do and how to do it.  There is a rather naive view of the teaching profession as simply imparting information, knowledge and know-how.  Unfortunately the task before all teachers is quite a bit more complicated and difficult.  A classroom is always a smorgasbord of various attention spans, temperaments and rabble-rousing.  The task is first and foremost an awfully difficult social experiment: simply corralling the attention of a bunch of young, still-developing humans is a feat in of it self.  Almost anything else is usually more attractive to such attention spans than the subject to be taught - not to mention their exceptional ability to deride the attention of each other.

Beyond this, a teacher has to calibrate for the lowest common denominator in terms of who understands what.  If half the class came from a different school which didn’t cover the same material, then those who already know it have to go over it again so everyone can get on the same page.

This is really what teaching is all about: getting someone on the same page.

First with each other, and then with the teacher who knows more.

Far from the teacher being a rude wake up call, it’s often the students that present a rude wake up call as to the magnitude of the task at hand.  This isn’t to say anything about kids at all - kids will be kids, but rather to point out that teachers are far more understanding, forgiving and generous than reality usually is.  And yet we call reality the best teacher.

Strangely, it makes a bit more sense if you flip the roles, and cast reality as the student who simply doesn’t understand what you’re trying to do.  It’s the teacher who iterates their approach in order to get the student to understand the lesson at hand.  So too with our role as we try to make something happen in the world.  We iterate our approach to try and make an idea, goal or dream come true.

Failures and errors in our approach always have to do with some sort of unknown aspect of reality, much like a teacher who is trying to teach calculus to a class that hasn’t even learned algebra.  It’s not that the students require a harsh wake up call, but that the teacher needs to back peddle the subject so that it can all make sense.

Far from having one’s own dreams crushed by the cricket-sound of a disinterested reality, it’s perhaps more enabling and productive to see reality as a student that simply can’t yet see where you’re coming from and what you’re trying to do.

The same sort of questions arise as we try to iterate for the next attempt, but the framing is filled with far more agency:

What have you missed that needs to be done so that your message, your work and your art can be understood, and loved? 

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: DIGITAL PLUNGE

November 8th, 2020

Every new start began with a party, and that was the one thing everyone knew they’d gotten right so far.  There was usually a few dreary moments before the celebration, filled with failure, as with this last iteration where everyone’s memory was still seared with the flash that ended it all.  Lucilius breathed a sigh of relief.  He was overjoyed to still be alive.  

He got up out of bed and ruffled his hair, scratching his scalp, always marvelled by the accuracy of the sensation.  He hobbled the few steps to his computer and pulled up the stats.  This was the 121st iteration of the Global Existential Solution Experiment, or as it was commonly referred to as, The Gese.  The last iteration had not lasted long, and the simulated world ended in global nuclear war, hence the flash seared in everyone’s waking memory.  Lucilius had a feeling that the first day’s celebration would take a while to get started as it seemed that everyone always had a bit of the blues when an iteration of The Gese ended in such a morose way.

The people would celebrate because The Gese afforded humanity another chance to figure out a way forward.  Early in the 21st Century, as the number of potential existential threats piled up on humanity’s shoulders - from trouble with the climate to nuclear war, viruses and Artificial Intelligence - Lucilius had presented an idea to the United Nations that was universally welcomed within just a couple of weeks.

Lucilius had been working on brain-interface technology for quite a while and had developed a pod in which a human could essentially hibernate while living in a video game.  Biological life was essentially suspended while the mind stayed active.  Lucilius proposed building 10 billion of these pods and loading everyone into a simulated version of the world as it stood at the time with the hope of serving 2 purposes:  one is that humanity’s time away from the biosphere would give it time to heal, and second, the video game world which was a near perfect copy of the real world, would give humanity the opportunity to figure out the best way forward with less risk.  With every iteration still lodged in everyone’s memory, the pure futility of nuclear war was now quite clear, particularly after the latest iteration.  Lucilius was pretty sure there would be a global consensus to dismantle all nuclear weapons later that night during the celebrations.  It had happened several times before during previous iterations that started when another ended in that iconic flash and heat.

Lucilius checked the stats and wondered how many times humanity would have to get swept up in the frenzy of fear that lead to nuclear war before it became permanently lodged in memory that it never ended well.  Briefly, he wondered if it was causing harm to the human psyche - this reassurance to start over.  Would that reassurance falsely remain when The Gese Experiment was over and humanity had to navigate reality for real?  

He shook off the thought.  By all measurements, things were going well.  Lucilius, along with any one else in the simulation who was interested, had access to a view of the outside world.  Before humanity had taken the digital plunge, they had united to create the most efficient system to support The Gese experiment.  Hibernating humans needed far fewer calories than when fulfilling the functions of a fully operational planet, and so the automation of food systems was far less intensive for the requirements of The Gese experiment.

The biosphere was regenerating at an incredible rate and with a total collapse in the production of greenhouse gases, the climate problem was on track to be a self-correcting climate solution within two years.  Other problems also benefited from the set up.  Scientists were able to continue their work within the simulation, activating remote laboratories and equipment that existed outside of the simulation in the real world, and their data was honored across simulations without loss.  Lucilius had taken a few such liberties.  Social media was wiped of course, but any substantial writing that anyone had done was honored, and Lucilius himself had taken the time to write a few books, despite is main job being the maintenance of the systems foundational to The Gese.

He was still daily astonished that humanity had gone for it, and even despite the often terrible endings of iterations, Lucilius felt that overall, humanity was - perhaps for the first time - having fun.

He picked up his fresh brewed cup of coffee and took a sip, gratefully.  And as he put it down and the mug clacked back, Lucilius heard the first distant pop of fireworks to celebrate the new day.  Lucilius smiled.  He picked his coffee back up and walked to the window.  There was another pop, but he could barely see it.

He considered for a moment.  It was technically against the rules, but, he didn’t think it was too much of a risk.  He tapped his phone until it brought up global simulation settings.  He placed a finger on a slider that was currently set to maximum and paused to perhaps think better of it.  But in that moment he hear another pop of a firework getting launched into the sky.  He pulled the slider all the way down and instantly the bright sun rolled out of view and the entire midday sky became a nightscape of stars. . just in time for the brilliant explosion of color to fill the sky’s canvas.

EDGE OF THE RABBITHOLE

November 7th, 2020

It’s one thing to have an idea, it’s quite another animal to make that idea come to life.  Bringing any idea to life boils down to a series of problems that need to be solved - it requires poking around and searching for solutions.  The reason why so few people hunt down the solutions required to bring ideas to life is perhaps because so many attempts to find solutions lead down long and winding rabbit holes that end with no solution.  The experience of needing to start over with nothing to show for one’s effort can be incredibly demoralizing. There is a meta skill that anyone competent in their field eventually develops for problems in that field: it’s the ability to get a sense for whether or not a rabbit hole  is promising or not.

As a beginner in a new field, it is usually next to impossible to come equipped with this intuition of judging a rabbit hole of research and effort just from it’s vague appearance from the outset.

Is this the path to the correct solution?  Or is that other path better?  Which will work faster?

The quickest way to get a good answer is to simply ask someone with who is a lot more familiar with the topic.  An expert with seniority in a field is often just someone who can take a look at a problem and say “I’ve seen something like this before.”

But without an expert on hand, there are two crucial aspects to judging the promise of a rabbit hole.

One is testing as soon as possible, as often as possible and as fast as possible.  If the first step down a rabbit whole of investigation can be tested in some way, then it should be tested before going any further.

For example in classical painting, there is a technique for establishing correct proportions of the object being drawn by comparing ratios of different lengths mapped on the object and comparing those ratios to the drawing.  It’s a simple form of measurement that allows an artist to  gain a greater and better approximation of the shape and size of the object, and this starts before any paint has touched the canvas, while it’s still just a drawing.  It would be silly to wait until the entire canvas was painted in order to start measuring to see how the underlying drawing could be improved.

Something similar happens in coding.  Instead of writing hundreds of lines of code in an attempt to bring an entire idea to fruition all at once, often just a small portion of code is written and then run to see if it works as expected.  The error here is less grave than with the painting because any part of the code can be written.  Unless of course all that code was written to serve a purpose that it doesn’t end up serving even when it does work as expected.  But writing small pieces and testing as progress is made is likely to reveal that fact sooner, before all the time required to write what’s in mind has come about.

This leads to the second crucial aspect of judging rabbit holes: pivoting against the sunk-cost fallacy.

We all experience the fallacy of sunk-cost, often on a daily basis.  Getting in one grocery line because it’s shorter can end up seeking like a bad idea when it moves incredibly slowly compared to the next line over.  Do we make the switch?  Often not because of the time already sunk in the commitment to the current line.  The same thing applies to our efforts.  Spending an inordinate amount of time chasing a phantom solution down a rabbit hole seems to justify more chasing, otherwise, what was the point of all the effort so far?  Developing the skill to let that go and back away and start from scratch and try a different approach is invaluable for two reasons.  Not only is it likely that a solution will be found elsewhere, faster, but trying out a different solution often quickly turns out to be an illuminating counter-point to the first attempt.  Being able to compare the progress of two paths gives a greater sense of which might actually be more promising.  

In this vein it can even be useful to purposely try a variety of paths, but dabble in each very quickly so that an array of possible approaches can be compared and rated.

Combining this ability to pivot with the necessity to test fast and frequently creates a simple rubric: if the current step of the rabbit hole can’t be tested, consider pivoting to an entirely different approach.  Often what will happen is that some progress on a new path will reveal something about the prior rabbit hole that had seemed to grow cold, but now yields progress when the pivot is made back with a new perspective, new fact or realization that came about only by looking for answers elsewhere.

It all comes down to pivoting and testing.