The Importance of Mistakes

An excerpt from "The Importance of Mistakes" by John Cleese

Throughout my childhood, guided missiles enchanted me in a way that normally only ugly ducklings or pirates or talking vermin enchant a child. In fact, the first nursery story I ever remember my mother reading to me was Gordon the Guided Missile. Let me explain why the guided missile found this special, warm place in my heart.

Gordon the guided missile sets off in pursuit of its target. It immediately sends out signals to discover if it is on the right course to hit that target. Signals come back: “No, you are not on course. So change it. Up a bit and slightly to the left.” And Gordon changes course as instructed and then, rational little fellow that he is, sends out another signal. “Am I on course now?” Back comes the answer, “No, but if you adjust your present course a bit further up and a bit further to the left, you will be.” He adjusts his course again and sends out another request for information. Back comes the answer, “No, Gordon, you’ve still got it wrong. Now you must come down a bit and a foot to the right.” And the guided missile goes on and on making mistakes, and on and on listening to feedback and on and on correcting its behavior until it blows up the nasty enemy thing. And we applaud the missile for its skill. If, however some critic says, “Well, it certainly made a lot of mistakes on the way”, we reply, “Yes, but that didn’t matter, did it? It got there in the end.” All its mistakes were little ones, in the sense that they could be immediately corrected. And as a result of making many hundreds of mistakes, eventually the missile succeeded in avoiding the one mistake which really would have mattered: missing the target.

I suggest that unless we have a tolerant attitude towards mistakes -- I might almost say a positive attitude towards them -- we shall be behaving irrationally, unscientifically, and unsuccessfully.

Of course there are true copper bottomed mistakes, like spelling the word “rabbit” with three m’s, or wearing a black bra under a white blouse, or, to make a more masculine example, starting a land war in Asia.

But I’m talking about mistakes which, at the time they were committed, did have a chance. The problem may be linguistic -- we don’t have a good word for “a reasonable try which didn’t come off.”

All of which ties in with my experience of what makes a group function more creatively. People must lose their inhibitions. They must gain the confidence to contribute spontaneously to what’s happening. Inhibition arises because of the fear of looking foolish, the fear of making mistakes. People are held back by this fear; they go over each thought they have six times before expressing it, in case someone will think it’s “wrong.” While this is going on, nothing useful can happen creatively.

A positive attitude towards mistakes will allow them to be corrected rapidly when they occur. We all know that when we and our colleagues admit our mistakes, it’s comparatively easy to put them right. The problems come when mistakes are denied. If you don't acknowledge a mistake, you can’t correct it.

Multiculturalism you!

“I worry, Mr. President, that translating our national anthem will actually have the effect of dividing us. It adds to the celebration of multiculturalism in our society which has eroded our understanding of our common American culture."
- Sen. Lamar Alexander, (R) Tennessee

I like how first liberal, and now multiculturalism have become bad words.

Ghetto laptop

Despite the fact that I am in a ballet company, have a history of musical theatre, use my hands more than my mouth when I talk, etc, etc...there are a few reasons that I am certain I am a man. One of these is the fact that I develop irrational attachments to inanimate objects. Case in point - my undershirts. Everytime I go home, my mother does away with at least half of my undershirts. In her mind, an undershirt has reached the end of its life when it becomes yellow, tattered and develops holes. What she doesn't realize is that to a man, its life is only just beginning at that point. What she sees as stains, frays and holes we see as colorful accents, personality and ventilation. Please note that I used the phrase 'does away with' as opposed to 'throws away.' I say this because what she does is much worse than a simple discarding of my shirts - that would at least be an honorable burial. No - she tears them up and uses them as rags - the apparel equivalent of having one's unmarked grave danced upon.

The other things we men develop irrational attachments to are our electric toys. Four years ago when I was heading off to France, in addition to many packages of clean shirts, my mother bought me a new laptop. I love it dearly - even more so because it came from my mother. Being that it is four years old and has been used almost every day of those four years, it is starting to show its age. Actually - it started showing its age a few years ago...now it is just clinging onto dear life. I have replaced the battery once and the hinges twice, the docking station barely works and the F4, F5 and F6 keys are missing (this has a bit to do the fact that my previous bird, Zoe, used to like to pluck them off the keyboard and hand them to me before heading back down to get another one). However, despite the fact that it has had a good life and that I can well afford to get a new one, I refuse to let go. After all, this was the computer with which I published my 'Page du Jour' everyday while I was in France. It has served as my window to the virtual world for four years now and has gone with me everywhere I go - it might as well be an undershirt.

So, not surprisingly, when the AC adaptor melted the power connector to the laptop, rather than going to Fry's to buy a new one, I set out to fix it. It took a while to realize exactly what had happened - the power connector is a pin-in-cylinder assembly, and the pin's base had melted, allowing the pin to be pushed back far enough such that it no longer made an electrical contact. In addition, the male portion of the connector had melted and would no longer stay in the socket unless you held it there. I started by replacing the male connector with one from a recharger for a digital camera which no longer works. Now the connector would stay in the socket, but it still didn't make an electrical connection. I trimmed the end of the connector to allow it to push as far into the cylinder as possible and upon doing this, found that if I pulled the connector to one side, the circuit would complete. Now, all I had to do was find a way to rig the connector so that it was constantly being pulled to one side. This was accomplished by building a very crude contraption which uses the USB port as an anchor and a plastic cylinder as the tensioner - and voila, it works!

So here it is - my 'good as new, never been more ghetto, seriously man, go and buy a new laptop' laptop. Isn't it beautiful ;-)