You know
that feeling at 2 am during a bout of fever induced insomnia that you have a
brilliant idea that’s creative and distracting and not at all-over complicated?
Hi.
My name is
Jessica and I’ll be hiding from the current election by writing the shit you
tell me to. (I’ll run a twitter poll a few days ahead of a post and you get to
vote what my prompt is.)
(There is
no such thing as) A Piece of Cake
An old job
of mine had a philosophy. “Watch one. Do one. Teach one.” And until you got to
part three, “Teach one”, your mind didn’t expand to the full complexity of the
task you were undertaking.
This was
generally my experience:
- Watch one: Match the key. Put the key in slot. Press button. Remove keys.
- Do one: A customer presents you with a key. Examine the hieroglyphics’ and match it one of the 40 available options. Read the instructions on this machine with 10 different examples on how you can saw off your own hand, and carefully decide which way is “up”….
- Teach one: Breath. Give yourself a pep-talk. Look them in the eye. Present the master key. Tell them about the hieroglyphics’ they won’t actually read until being stared down by the soccer mom that found them hiding in aisle 4…
Over the
years I’ve had time to absorb that philosophy. I recognize now that it was a
way of 1) building a community where the employees would rely on each other and
2) skimp out of paying for teaching materials, but the phrase still stuck with
me. The steps mirror how much of knowledge is using in the world, and suddenly
those six words explain so much.
Watch one: The internet loves to tell you how
easy something is. LOVES to tell you that flipping this one switch turns all
the lights on, and all you need is the light. (I say “the internet”, but we all
know who I mean.) You just need a lightbulb to see in the dark. They forget the
metal bits holding it out of the wall. The wires inside of the lightbulb performing
a science experiment, or the wires providing that experiment with energy. The
internet forgets the wires in your wall, and the walls protecting you from
those wires. That the wire comes into your house because of math and infrastructure
and money. During your “Watch” phase, you know that there is a problem, and a
solution, and hey, flipping the switch is a piece of cake, right?
Do one: One of my favorite things about
learning: the deeper you dive in, the more complex your subject becomes. Zoom
in. Zoom in. Things you weren’t even aware of 10 days before are now interacting
with each other and creating this thing you knew was possible, but couldn’t
imagine had more than 5 parts. Once, where a simple item stood, there are now
lines of code, and 10 different metals, and this physics problem that you didn’t
even think was needed. It’s just an alarm clock. The outside is so simple. A
few buttons, smooth black finish, and an LED screen. Never mind the fact that
time itself a concept debated in the high halls of philosophy, all you need it
to do is wake you up. The “Do” phase makes one suddenly aware that the piece of
cake is part of a bigger confectionary treat, and there are a few switches to
take care of.
Teach one: Experts are my favorite people.
No, I’ll restate that. Nerds are my favorite people. Someone who has a deep and
intense love for a THING, and love to tell you about their THING, and want you
to love it for all of the complexity they get out of their THING, are my
favorite people. There are nerds about TV shows and nerds about cell phones and
nerds about gardening and nerds about plumbing. There are people that can speak
Klingon in binary and I find that to be beautiful.
Those that
can’t do, “Teach”. Well, only if “can’t do” means that stopping at flipping the
switches is enough for them.
Tomorrow's prompt, chosen by twitter, is "Just Watch Me".
Tomorrow's prompt, chosen by twitter, is "Just Watch Me".
