Special Comment: On Embracing Error
Jul. 7th, 2010 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptI separate this one out from its place in a regular posting for personal reasons. Kathryn Schulz writes an article in the Boston Globe about the need to embrace our error-producing capacity so that we can design systems that compensate for our inevitable errors, instead of making being wrong a bad thing. As a self-professed perfectionist with an absentminded streak, you can guess that the idea of embracing error is almost anathema, and the relentless drive to be error-free means there's a lot of negative self-talk involved whenever the perfect percentage is less than 100.
Perhaps less than paradoxically, advice from others who are more comfortable with the limits of their abilities is usually fuel to the fire instead of the retardant they think it will be. It's like telling a competitive player that "It's only just a game." For the Zen few, they're aware of it and don't need to be told. For the striving, or for those who have invested an amount of their self-identity into their game playing, it often comes across as a dismissal of their efforts and investments as trivial or unimportant, and by extension, a dismissal of them. So while it would seem like "Nobody's Perfect" is the right thing to say in that situation, I would say it's usually the wrong thing to say to someone in that situation, especially if they're still visibly agitated about it. Comparisons to "the big picture" are also usually not recommended at that point. Most people, once enough time and distance has passed, will be able to regain their equilibrium and place things in their larger contexts by themselves. So long as it's not dangerous to do so, letting them ride out the wave and get their frustration out will probably get them back to sane and rational faster than aggravating them by trying to make them get calm faster.
I also think that people who have been good at things throughout their lives have a harder time of embracing error and being able to shrug off, yet learn, from things going wrong. The A student that hits a sudden jump in difficulty is going to be more frustrated than the C student if their grades start to suffer. The person who wrote the book on method X is going to be more frustrated when method Y becomes the default, and they keep getting things sent back for being done under method X. I suppose that's part of the rationale behind the philosophy that says failure is good for us. Where the problems develop, though, is that finding the thing that perfectionists, nerds, and brains aren't good at usually results in the conclusion, "I'm not good at that, so I intend to avoid having to do it. I'd rather feel good about myself and my skills, thanks." That conclusion will get reinforced in required schooling, because, well, it's Hell, and the unsocialized residents are always on the look out for whatever weakness they can find. (We note, on the side, that there's no requirement for intellectual sport in required schooling - just about all of the arts, music, academic games, and speaking classes/activities can be avoided on the road to graduation, assuming that they're there in the first place.) Instead of embracing error and working to help people feel confident and okay if their ability is limited, the incessant drive for perfection results in the bad end described in the article - shunning and not talking about the problem to find ways of improving one's form. (Well, sort of. In the beginning, when learning, we're patient and willing to teach the form. Once we think you've got it, though, there are far fewer opportunities to correct the form and/or to catch things that will lead to error before they get there. A yearly performance review versus continual feedback, for example.) As the article notes, in places where error can be costly, deadly, or damaging, it would make better sense to foster an environment where people are okay talking about what went wrong, or to ask questions as to whether something is about to go wrong because of what they did.
That goes for personal lives, too. The oft-cliched caricature of men that don't talk about their feelings and have only violent responses to problems that arise in their lives has its grain of truth. After all, we don't want to be the gossipy drama llamas that read six layers of intent into everything said, right? We don't watch soap operas (except if you're a professional wrestling fan) and we want action and explosions, not confessions of love and romance. If we talked about things, we might have to admit we're wrong, and that undermines our Power and Authority as The Man. There's only one thing to say about that:
*thbbbbbbbbbbpth*
Thing is, though, I'm betting on a lot of people who don't want to admit they're wrong have some emotional trauma on the matter in the past. If the brainy kid stood up and gave a wrong answer she was sure was right and all the other kids teased him and chanted and smirked and basically made her feel like being wrong was the path to social ridicule, guess what she's going to think about the acceptability of being wrong? If the physically awkward child got teased for not being able to swing a bat and was always referred to as the "easy out", what kind of boldness will be instilled in him to trying physical challenges or playing other team sports? What message does a parent send to a child by telling them it's "just a game" right after they make the mistake that causes them to lose? These events, over time and repeated enough, give us an aversion to trying in case we fail, because every time before someone has been there to tell us just how worthless we are or how unimportant our efforts really are. After a while, they don't need to be there. We'll see it as further confirmation of our worthlessness. And then it can spread outside of one area into others, so that any failure becomes a reaffirmation of our worthlessness. For things like sport, there's the coach there to help improve, correct, and keep the psychological state of the player relatively in balance. Out here in life, for far too many things, we're out here on our own. The professional coaches and listeners usually charge large amounts of money per session, putting them out of the financial reach of most of us. (Not that we begrudge them charging fees to impart their expertise or to listen and help us work through our issues.) Society expects us all to keep calm and carry on, at least while out in public. Think about it - a Supreme Court judge was attacked because she said having empathy for someone else, being able to feel their feelings, was a good thing for someone administering justice.
I don't know that I have solutions in this case. I mean, if society suddenly got on its horse and made the default mode to be that we accept errors as they come and work to find ways of compensating for them, that would be fantastic. If Zen descended upon our lives so that we could accept ourselves as we are and be unafraid of mistakes happening, even with preparation, that would be wonderful. And in some aspects of our lives, we're better than others about mistakes. There will be good days and bad, days where we can shrug off one, but three in quick succession reduce us to tears, and days where we made six in a row but got beyond them. (And not always because we got number seven just right to prove we can do it.) It's always a struggle. Not one that you can easily spot, either. But it's there, and until we realize our own innate perfection or actually make it to the perfect plateau, it will keep going.
One last thing, one that provides the possibility of hope. Baseball is still nominally the American past-time. Hitting a round ball traveling at high speeds and sharp breaks with a round bat in such a way as to avoid nine fielders is pretty tough to do to start with. So much so that players who manage to do so a mere three times out of ten, who succeed thirty percent of the time, are almost assured a place in the Hall of Fame as great baseball players.
If, however, padded rugby has become the national sport, then the culture has shifted over to one where you only have a limited number of chances to make progress, and that if you can't do that, you're going to have your ball taken away from you or have to punt it off to someone else and play defense.
I want a baseball culture. Makes life easier in a lot of ways, being untimed and much more forgiving of one's ability at the plate over a career.
Perhaps less than paradoxically, advice from others who are more comfortable with the limits of their abilities is usually fuel to the fire instead of the retardant they think it will be. It's like telling a competitive player that "It's only just a game." For the Zen few, they're aware of it and don't need to be told. For the striving, or for those who have invested an amount of their self-identity into their game playing, it often comes across as a dismissal of their efforts and investments as trivial or unimportant, and by extension, a dismissal of them. So while it would seem like "Nobody's Perfect" is the right thing to say in that situation, I would say it's usually the wrong thing to say to someone in that situation, especially if they're still visibly agitated about it. Comparisons to "the big picture" are also usually not recommended at that point. Most people, once enough time and distance has passed, will be able to regain their equilibrium and place things in their larger contexts by themselves. So long as it's not dangerous to do so, letting them ride out the wave and get their frustration out will probably get them back to sane and rational faster than aggravating them by trying to make them get calm faster.
I also think that people who have been good at things throughout their lives have a harder time of embracing error and being able to shrug off, yet learn, from things going wrong. The A student that hits a sudden jump in difficulty is going to be more frustrated than the C student if their grades start to suffer. The person who wrote the book on method X is going to be more frustrated when method Y becomes the default, and they keep getting things sent back for being done under method X. I suppose that's part of the rationale behind the philosophy that says failure is good for us. Where the problems develop, though, is that finding the thing that perfectionists, nerds, and brains aren't good at usually results in the conclusion, "I'm not good at that, so I intend to avoid having to do it. I'd rather feel good about myself and my skills, thanks." That conclusion will get reinforced in required schooling, because, well, it's Hell, and the unsocialized residents are always on the look out for whatever weakness they can find. (We note, on the side, that there's no requirement for intellectual sport in required schooling - just about all of the arts, music, academic games, and speaking classes/activities can be avoided on the road to graduation, assuming that they're there in the first place.) Instead of embracing error and working to help people feel confident and okay if their ability is limited, the incessant drive for perfection results in the bad end described in the article - shunning and not talking about the problem to find ways of improving one's form. (Well, sort of. In the beginning, when learning, we're patient and willing to teach the form. Once we think you've got it, though, there are far fewer opportunities to correct the form and/or to catch things that will lead to error before they get there. A yearly performance review versus continual feedback, for example.) As the article notes, in places where error can be costly, deadly, or damaging, it would make better sense to foster an environment where people are okay talking about what went wrong, or to ask questions as to whether something is about to go wrong because of what they did.
That goes for personal lives, too. The oft-cliched caricature of men that don't talk about their feelings and have only violent responses to problems that arise in their lives has its grain of truth. After all, we don't want to be the gossipy drama llamas that read six layers of intent into everything said, right? We don't watch soap operas (except if you're a professional wrestling fan) and we want action and explosions, not confessions of love and romance. If we talked about things, we might have to admit we're wrong, and that undermines our Power and Authority as The Man. There's only one thing to say about that:
*thbbbbbbbbbbpth*
Thing is, though, I'm betting on a lot of people who don't want to admit they're wrong have some emotional trauma on the matter in the past. If the brainy kid stood up and gave a wrong answer she was sure was right and all the other kids teased him and chanted and smirked and basically made her feel like being wrong was the path to social ridicule, guess what she's going to think about the acceptability of being wrong? If the physically awkward child got teased for not being able to swing a bat and was always referred to as the "easy out", what kind of boldness will be instilled in him to trying physical challenges or playing other team sports? What message does a parent send to a child by telling them it's "just a game" right after they make the mistake that causes them to lose? These events, over time and repeated enough, give us an aversion to trying in case we fail, because every time before someone has been there to tell us just how worthless we are or how unimportant our efforts really are. After a while, they don't need to be there. We'll see it as further confirmation of our worthlessness. And then it can spread outside of one area into others, so that any failure becomes a reaffirmation of our worthlessness. For things like sport, there's the coach there to help improve, correct, and keep the psychological state of the player relatively in balance. Out here in life, for far too many things, we're out here on our own. The professional coaches and listeners usually charge large amounts of money per session, putting them out of the financial reach of most of us. (Not that we begrudge them charging fees to impart their expertise or to listen and help us work through our issues.) Society expects us all to keep calm and carry on, at least while out in public. Think about it - a Supreme Court judge was attacked because she said having empathy for someone else, being able to feel their feelings, was a good thing for someone administering justice.
I don't know that I have solutions in this case. I mean, if society suddenly got on its horse and made the default mode to be that we accept errors as they come and work to find ways of compensating for them, that would be fantastic. If Zen descended upon our lives so that we could accept ourselves as we are and be unafraid of mistakes happening, even with preparation, that would be wonderful. And in some aspects of our lives, we're better than others about mistakes. There will be good days and bad, days where we can shrug off one, but three in quick succession reduce us to tears, and days where we made six in a row but got beyond them. (And not always because we got number seven just right to prove we can do it.) It's always a struggle. Not one that you can easily spot, either. But it's there, and until we realize our own innate perfection or actually make it to the perfect plateau, it will keep going.
One last thing, one that provides the possibility of hope. Baseball is still nominally the American past-time. Hitting a round ball traveling at high speeds and sharp breaks with a round bat in such a way as to avoid nine fielders is pretty tough to do to start with. So much so that players who manage to do so a mere three times out of ten, who succeed thirty percent of the time, are almost assured a place in the Hall of Fame as great baseball players.
If, however, padded rugby has become the national sport, then the culture has shifted over to one where you only have a limited number of chances to make progress, and that if you can't do that, you're going to have your ball taken away from you or have to punt it off to someone else and play defense.
I want a baseball culture. Makes life easier in a lot of ways, being untimed and much more forgiving of one's ability at the plate over a career.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 11:06 pm (UTC)And then, if you look at the way we're set up, innovation and risk-taking are squashed at almost every turn possible or run into giant barriers.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-07 11:18 pm (UTC)