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.

EDGE OF ABILITY

October 20th, 2020

Massive projects are daunting to start.  To overcome that ominous veil cast about the future, the trick is to chip off a real small piece that’s manageable and deal with just that piece.  Once the ball is rolling, that’s when real motivation actually shows up:  The emotion of motivation arises from the motion of action. Picking that action is the real trick to both motivation and taking on Goliath-sized projects.  

But how exactly do we pick which spot to start with?  The answer to this question doesn’t just apply to the first bite of the mammoth apple of achievement, it’s also part of the answer to which step should be the next step, for each and every step after that.

The first qualification for choosing a spot to start or a spot to continue is knowing with absolute certitude that it’s possible.  We might feel this is the case for the whole project, but the question of scope is important here.  

It must also be small enough that the task can fall within the unit of effort that we have at our human disposal.  A huge project cannot be accomplished in one fell swoop.  It must be taken down in tiny pieces, as when chopping down an enormous trees: it’s simply ridiculous that one epic swing is going to bring it down.

After these two qualifications, it’s a matter of what we know we can do and what we don’t yet know how to do.

For everything that is bite-sized in terms of our available effort, and it falls under the category of things we know how to do: these items are the low-hanging fruit that’s best to go at first.  If any of them are also fun, then go for those covered in icing.

After that, the next in line are those items we’re not totally sure how to do, and so on until we have thing we know are possible but which we have no idea how to pull off.

What occurs as we move from the low-hanging-icing-caked items toward those things we’re not so sure how to do is that the network of tiny accomplishments - even with things we know how to do - builds it’s own knowledge.  This network gains like an army surrounding an enemy.  Our progress on a project doesn’t need to barrel headlong into an area that is nothing but a blank question mark.  Our progress can work around it, and by enveloping it, the shape of that problem refines, winnows and through this process the true form of the issue emerges, which often, ultimately betrays some trick, idea, revelation or familiar component that acts like the thin edge of the wedge used to crack conundrum wide open and solve it.

This organic, growing entity of progress on a project is perhaps best phrased as the edge of ability.  By starting with what is well within one’s ability, we move out to find that edge, and it advances like a heavy ax swung into the tree trunk:  the blade’s edge makes progress not just because it’s sharp, but because of how much solid weight is behind it and adding to it’s inertia.  The same goes for our ability to achieve something large in small pieces.  The components of success gain inertia as we fashion each and join them into a robust foundation, a network which can then be used to overtake the unknown.

BLAND GEMS

October 19th, 2020

Exotic inevitably has an element of being foreign, of being different.  It’s this otherness of the exotic that gives it it’s allure and generates our fascination.  On the coin’s other side is the familiar, the commonplace, and by default: the plain.  The ordinary lacks allure because it lacks mystery.  It’s this framework of human fascination and disinterest that cripples a vital pathway between people, and underlines why it’s so important to share.

Share what?  Share thoughts, ideas, modes of being, personal strategies, observations - all of it.

Though on a personal level all of these things feel fairly benign, this is because of that framework of fascination: anything that we are overly familiar with is just boring.  And this emotional catch-22 keeps the mind from considering just how impactful these benign and boring thoughts might be for other people.  

What seems like a lacklustre idea to the person who casually has that idea might be the golden key to someone else’s conundrum.

The perspective that’s nothing but everyday to one person might be mind-bending to someone else.

The effortless methods one person has for organizing their internal life might be the saving grace for someone else who is suffering.

There are these bland gems that exist within each of us - bland because such things are boring to the one who possesses, and gems to others oblivious to such things.  The analogy works just as well with actual material possessions.  It takes no effort at all to imagine the restless, disgruntled and bored billionaire sitting on the back of their yacht wondering just what they should do.  Meanwhile there are countless millions who would rejoice with unhinged ecstasy if they were to suddenly find themselves beset with boredom in such conditions.  In the arena of material possessions and pleasure, this is referred to as hedonic adaptation, which if phrased simply, means that we get used to the good life and because of that, it ceases to be all that good, hence the need for more, and more.

Intellectually we are similar.  We suffer from a kind of personal intellectual adaptation: we are both bored of our own internal accomplishments and gems.  Everything we know and understand is just so obvious, by default.  But what is obvious to one is certainly not obvious to others: hence the benefit of sharing.

But as a further note, there’s perhaps a question of medium to consider.  While there are good influences on platforms like social media, such places are perhaps not constructed in a way ideal to the task of sharing for mutual and widespread benefit.

The old and school-abused method of simply writing is perhaps best, with in-person conversation following as a trailing second.  But both of these benefit immensely from a bit of skillful practice - and neither get much of such treatment.  School often signals the end of that eye-rolling drudgery known as writing, and almost no one is thinking about what it means to become a more skillful conversationalist.

How many of us are left like locked boxes of gems we ourselves see no value in?

A LUCILIUS PARABLE: WRITTEN IN WATER

October 18th, 2020

This parable is dedicated to the individual behind the Twitter handle @Sixteen_Tons

As the mist crept in from the colder north, Lucilius was lost in reverie, his round and peaceful eyes trained on the light impressions of footprints in the soft moorland grass.  As his kind friend, the young exuberant archeologist trudged ahead leading the way, Lucilius was like a walking automaton, happy in his memories.

He could see his hands, young back in that old lost time - a time to which he now rarely turned his thought, pressing the reed quill into the soft clay, spinning the quill at right angles and stabbing in the beautifully spiked and angled script.  So long ago, he squinted, trying now to remember the sound of that long forgotten language, still seeing blocky meaning in the faded image of spaded script.

“I think we should make camp here since the fog is rolling in. Make the final push tomorrow.”

The young woman was stopped, half turned as Lucilius closed up the short distance.  He grew to a stop close to her and looked at the map she was holding.  

“I think we’re about here,” she said, circling a small area on the map with a pointed finger.

“Looks about right,” Lucilius said. 

“Probably just an hour or two more in the morning, no reason to push into the fog,” she said.

Lucilius smiled in agreement.  They unpacked the tent, heated water on the tiny propane stove and snacked on dried meats.  The two enjoyed the chill evening silence, and failed to ruin it with talk.  It was lovely, to see the drive and passion of this young archeologist on the move.  They had met quite at random, and Lucilius had proved strangely knowledgeable as they had spoken of her work.

“How’d you know what that symbol means?  Did you study this?”

“Oh,” Lucilius had said casually, smiling.  “I guess I just read widely.”

She was asleep before Lucilius was, bound up in her own sleeping bag, a complete package of wholesome ambition.  Lucilius stayed up a bit later, thinking again upon times he’d been through long ago: the enormous clay tablet he’d worked had been the largest anyone had ever known, and when it cracked under it’s own weight, the surprise was a crushing disappointment.  Lucilius could still remember the dark and crowned eyes twitching with dissatisfaction.  The gilded man had turned and paused only to mutter a few mere words into an attendant’s ear before leaving.  The attendant’s face slipped the slightest expression of pity before saying the whole project would have to be redone, in stone. 

Lucilius awoke to the sound of her voice.  “Wake up old man!”

Lucilius propped himself up on elbows and gave her a critically quizzical look.  “Do I look like an old man?”

The young woman shrugged, almost bashfully.  “Well no, but you sure sleep like one.”

She already had a bit of breakfast underway way and handed Lucilius a mug of coffee.  He relished the steaming drink, feeling the diffuse, slept part of his brain congeal into his waking version.

“Crap!”

Lucilius looked to the archaeologist looking troubled, peeling moist pages of a journal apart, the penciled writings smeared and fading.  Lucilius chuckled a bit and she frowned at him.  

“This is important!” She exclaimed.  

Lucilius reached for his pack, unzipped a compartment and pulled a special notebook from it.  He tossed it at her.

“What’s this?”

“It’s waterproof you amateur. Copy what you can make out and go with that.”  She tried to suppress her smile, but turned to the task gratefully.  

Lucilius sat back, the old image of memory renewing itself in his mind: his hands shaking themselves of the weary pain of chisel and mallet, the vast piece of stone littered with his perfect markings, the task nearly done.  And finally when the king laid eyes upon the massive stone tablet, Lucilius could see the smile surpassed beneath his gilded countenance, the muted joy in the man’s hard eyes.

The two were off in no time, trudging through the chilly moorland until some miles on they came upon the small craggy peak.  Lucilius smiled, remembering so many years later, long after the king and his kingdom had fallen to the sands of time venturing this far out again with the growth of a new civilization, a new kingdom.  Lucilius remembered his legionnaire friends, the living pulse of a new border of a different empire reaching out to the limits of human possibility.  Lucilius remembered seeing again, clad in armor, squinting in familiarity at the craggy peak then and now once again.  He smiled.

“This has got to be it.” The woman said with an elated smile.  “This has got to be what those locals were talking about, and the Hadrian records…”

Lucilius smiled.  “Let’s check it out.”  

As the two readied their electric lanterns, Lucilius glimpsed again the ancient memory, when the task had finally been done, the monumental stone finally complete, the attendant of the King told Lucilius that more stones would have to be carved so that each could be placed at the far reaches of the kingdom.  How many years he had plied chisel to stone, he could no longer remember, remembering only the memorized text that had riddled the many stones, each to be lifted by many men, carried and shipped off to the ends of that ancient world.

Lucilius and the young woman descended into the cleft of wet rock, both navigating the rocky way with hands stretched out to steady, their wide cones of white lantern light jostling around awkwardly at the inner cavern.  The descended deeply, having heard the local stories of ancient writings somewhere deep in the winding cave.  For an hour they clambered through the winding darkness until finally there was no where else to go.  

The two turned in all directions, splashing their lantern light all around, looking. With the impetuous quickness of youth the young woman sighed with aggravation.

“There’s nothing here!” She nearly yelled.  

Lucilius didn’t respond but simply kept looking, moving the light slower, and then finally his eye caught on a familiarity - not much, only the tiniest of shapes, off to a side.  He took a few slow careful steps to the edge of the cavern and hunkered down, focusing on the spot.  It blended in nearly perfectly, a single slice missing from a stone, like any other chipped mark.  The exasperation of the young woman echoed loudly off the rocky walls as she muttered, then Lucilius swiped away the stony gravel and she grew quiet.  She turned and then hurried over.

“Holy…” she barely breathed.  The uncovered stone Lucilius had cleared was littered with faded marks.  

“You found it!” The young woman yelled.  She collapsed to her knees and began clearing more and more of the gravel earth away.

Lucilius helped her clear away the stone face. “So much water damage…” the woman whispered between laboured breaths as the earth was cleared.  An hour later the stone face was brushed clean and the young woman had her eyes trained on the symbols, straining at some.  Lucilius noticed.

“Which one?”

“That one,” she pointed.  Lucilius pretended to lean in and squint as though analyzing it.

“Isn’t that the symbol for…” he’d say, hesitating falsely.

The woman chuckled, “I think you’re right, yea that would make sense - damn you’re good at this!”  The woman was overcome with joy.  

“This is going to make my career, you know that?” Lucilius smiled limply.   The woman flung her arms around him.

“It’s crazy how this all happened.  I don’t think I ever would have found this if I hadn’t met you, as strange as that is.”

“Sure you would have..” Lucilius shot back.

“Nah,” she said, pulling back to look at him, holding on to him still.  “Even my advisor said I was crazy to pursue this idea.  That the Roman writings were actually evidence of their own archeological discoveries this far out.  It’s only because we met and started talking about it.”

“So many of our thoughts,” Lucilius said, “are like words written in water.”  He paused.  “We are like words written in water.  Here one moment, gone the next.  Gotta hang on to an idea every now and again and hammer it home, see if it’ll stick to reality.”  He nodded to the stone tablet in front of them.

“Like this.  The person who thought up these words is long gone, but the effort isn’t.”

The woman was lost in a daze looking at the stone, listening to Lucilius.  She said slowly, “I guess we are a fleeting chance to make a lasting chance.”

Lucilius smiled.  “That’s certainly the assumption you have to make.  None of us know just how long we’ll be around.”

HOTKEY COGNITION

October 17th, 2020

Stories function as shortcuts for thinking.  Create a story in someone’s mind around a topic and then the framework for that story becomes a hotkey that can be pressed by reference to indicate how someone should interpret and understand a similar circumstance.  

Notice how this sort of hotkey cognition could lead us astray in our assessment.  Say for example an individual has had the disappointing experience of learning about a partner’s infidelity and consequently ending the relationship.  And as a result of that experience, this individual replays the past on repeat in their mind as we are so often likely to do.  The past is combed clean of clues and signs to understand how and why this unsavoury circumstance came to be, and inevitably one of the details is how often this partner would be absent, perhaps giving all manner of reasons for being late, or having last minute plans come up - all the sorts of slippery statements that a liar is bound to concoct.  This becomes, not just history, but a structure, a template, a story.  Imagine this same individual entering into a wonderful new relationship, and after a number of months the same signs start popping up: late getting home, always sneaking away for odd times.  It would be entirely natural and completely understandable for this person to begin to suspect that something unsavoury is going on.  It’s natural and understandable because this individual has been primed to see it this way with the cognitive hotkey composed of the story-view of the past.

It’s all in that ominous phrase:  I’ve seen this before.

Then of course it turns out that this new lover has been sneaking away to a woodshop to build a beautiful gift in secret.  The story once founded on deception and betrayal is now erroneously applied to white lies in the name of a beautiful gesture.

Notice further how easily this sort of hotkey cognition could be used purposely for nefarious causes.  We need only reverse the order of this person’s experience.  Say they first have a partner who sneaks away to do nice things for them, and their next partner does the same but for less honorable reasons.  We might imagine a worse scenario involving an entire nation.  It’s easy for isolated incidents to be captured in some sort of digital form and then spread to an enormous number of people.  Depending on how the incident is framed by the format, it’s likely that the large majority of people are going to interpret it similarly, despite the fact that the incident might look completely different had one been present or if it’d simply been captured from another angle.  Such majority interpretations become the cognitive hotkey for that majority of interpreters - a hotkey which can then be used in the future to press those people for a similar reaction by mere mention and reference.  

Social media has super-pumped this phenomenon to such a degree that examples of this hotkey cognition being active on a mass scale occur several times a year, if not several times a month.  The original context of an issue carries over to the next like incident, despite how radically different each circumstance might be.  This represents a process of tradeoff between nuance and speed.  We forfeit the prior in order to have some sort of understanding faster, despite how wrong it might be.

We gain experience only when we’ve hard tested stories for their utility. Naiveté occurs when we believe in a story without testing it against multiple like-circumstances and finding the places where the story’s effectiveness for understanding cracks against a different applied instance.

Wisdom in this case is merely a form of self-awareness: knowing which stories are well-tested, and which other stories have had little time in the field, despite how loud those stories are in the mind. 

Taking a step back, from the subject at hand here, wisdom can be redefined as an analysis of which cognitive shortcuts are valid and which are not - it is, in essence, not taking the shortcut, pausing, and deciding if the narrative upon which we are acting is sensible.