The (Piece of) Cake is a Lie

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

Day 1 Poll

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".