The way things don’t work

For years, I’ve had a book on my shelf: The Way Things Work, by David Macauley. Published in 1988 for “readers of all ages”, it is a delightful visual summary of how basic machines and technologies work. Not sure what a pulley? This is explained, more through pictures than words, in a section entitled “the Mechanics of Movement”. Can you fix that lawn sprinkler? You can learn about worm gears and sprinklers in two fun-filled pages under “Gears and Belts”. Over the decades, as I’ve winnowed my library of printed materials during many moves of work and domicile, Macauley’s book has always made the cut. It reminds me that it is possible, at a very high conceptual level, to understand things that I interact with on a daily basis, especially things invented by humans.

What though of things that don’t work? It is comforting, even empowering, to develop a vocabulary about mechanics, electricity, and the basics of the zipper. Might there be similar benefit to routine expansion of our understanding through the lens of mistakes, misfires, and simply silly human designs, interventions, and efforts?

A jaunt through my recent week offers some examples. Let’s begin with the audio functions of the Zoom call. Pushing the connect button for Zoom is easy; most of us have learned how to do this expertly. What is one to do, however, when the speaker function on the plug-in headset stops working? On Wednesday, I could hear people. On Thursday, nope, they were suddenly muted. All the computer keyboard indicators were properly silent. Could I make it work? Sadly, I could not. What about thinking of ways to assure the audio would not work? Aha! I found it: it does now work to use the microphone option on Zoom audio control when the problem is the speaker function. You see, if the problem is what you are not hearing, it does not work to try to control the other person’s microphone with the setting that manages your own. In other words, I could change the microphone function all day long and not fix the issue – something I can tell you from repeat effort. Why does that not work? Because it is the “speaker” function on the control panel that switches the sound from computer to auxiliary headset. It even says so, right on the control options. Once I found out what didn’t work, I was able to realize what did work and, almost magically, I could hear meetings again through the tiny wire connecting connecting computer to ears, saving my entire household from participating in the meeting experience with me. Thus, through the realization about how audio things did not work on Zoom, family peace and harmony were rescued. And my work productivity soared.

Instances of miscues abound, present all around us should we just look and listen. If watered, for instance, trees on the southern side of a northern hemisphere house eventually grow; it does not work to put solar panels on a roof during one decade when those southern-side trees will block out the sun a single decade later. Why? Trees like the sun. That’s what helps them grow. Consequently, if those same trees absorb the star’s rays before those rays reach the solar display on the roof of the house, well, the panels on that roof will not get rays themselves, and hence will not charge. And kaput goes their usefulness.

It is also difficult to read the pitch and grain of a golf course green when an inexperienced golfer is trying to make a crucial putt during what appears to be a competitive game with friends; it does not work for all three of the other players to provide simultaneous input on the aim of the one nervous golfer’s putt. The reason? The golfer with the metal club in his hand does not know how it use it. He gets flustered and ends up sending the small white ball farther from the cup than where it was when he began.

A young couple traveling through town may, after consuming alcohol in a local establishment, get into an argument; it does not work for a kind-hearted local who does not know the couple but himself previously had some bumps in life to reason with the perhaps ill-matched pair. Why not? Logic from a representative of an older generation cannot easily traverse the neural circuitry of youth, especially when that youthful wiring is bathed by the illogical chemistry of ethanol and its derivatives.

Three unleashed dogs walking on a footpath will, should there be opportunity, invariably leave their owner’s side; it does not work for the dogs’ owner to talk to her four-legged friends as if the group had signed a pre-exercise contract regarding the rules of walking off a leash. How do we know this? It is a well-known fact that most dogs (unless their name is Lassie) cannot read contracts. Plus a dog’s signature is too easy to forge and so none would ever put paw to paper anyway, regardless of the situation. Finally, all dogs know that any self-respecting member of canis lupus familiaris, under contract or not, will stray from its human’s side when said canine gets a whiff of grass or dirt, other dogs (leashed or not), or even the possibility of a squirrel.

The above are only a few observations from my travels in recent days. There were many more. And together we could probably cite other manifestations of the basic principles of non-working things from the arenas of public policy and the media, things such as communication techniques on the science behind vaccines, the application of ancient perspective of gun control to contemporary mass shootings, and a myriad of other topics and themes. There is, in fact, no shortage of evidence regarding the way things don’t work. It surrounds us with too much regularity. Why then, in such a state of abundance, don’t we avail ourselves of more opportunities to learn? What prevents us from breaking through, as a species, and putting our personal and collective experience into productive and collaborative practice?

Perhaps it is the mindset associated with change. Or maybe we just enjoy focusing on what is working rather that what is not. No one likes to look into a mirror and see their flaws. It’s too easy to do that with others. And yet our own flaws are usually all we see in the mirror, if we are being honest. Which is maybe why we like to see them in others. Which we in turn chide ourselves for doing when we look into the mirror. Which motivates us to turn away from the mirror as we age, tired of seeing our own blemishes, especially the ones behind the skin, eyes, and hair we see in our reflections.

But might it be easier if we found more humor in ourselves and our circumstances? Later in her life, my mom would sometimes start to laugh at herself, typically (but not always) when she thought no one was looking. Occasionally I’d be visiting and would catch her shaking her head, calling herself by name, and chuckling. If she caught me catching her, she would just smile and say something about how foolish she was. For a long time I thought that she was practicing the art of humility. Now I realize taht it may have been deeper than that. She may have been finding joy in the realization of the many ways that things – many for which she had accountability – did not work. Amazingly, she may have figured out how to make that work.

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