Eiffel Over

Tag: NotKnowing

  • The wrong (moment to put on your waterproof) trousers

    This is a post for the cycling decision-makers among you. It may resonate even if you don’t cycle. Variations on the question of whether, if it starts raining when cycling, it is worth stopping to put on your waterproofs.

    How late am I running? Have I got time to stop? How heavy is the rain? Will it carry on? How quickly could my clothes dry? Will I get wetter stopping to put them on?

    If I do decide to carry on, is it wetter to go quicker or slower?

    Do I have all the facts? Do I know all the unknowns? Is this a complicated or a complex problem? Am I able to make a good decision? 

    Is there an angle I can cycle at in which my rain shadow protects my lower half sufficiently? 

    Is how I’m framing the question limiting the result? What opportunities am I not considering? If I stop at a random location to put on my waterproofs, what might I notice that I might never have discovered had I ploughed on?

    What happened last time? Was it the right decision? What are other people doing? What would my future self advise?

    Am I even in the right frame of mind to make this decision? What could I be thinking about instead?

    What happens if I get it wrong? How much does it matter to me if I get it right? Am I deluding myself that I’m in control? 

  • Storm’s coming: go to the cinema

    Storm’s coming: go to the cinema

    In times gone by, people went to the cinema to stay warm. The movie theatre offers a place of shelter from the elements and also an escape from reality for a couple of hours. Last week, when storms huffed and puffed and infrastructure bent and buckled, Great Western Railway suspended all services from London to Bristol. I was stranded in the capital amid a maelstrom of conflicting information about when services would resume. So rather than stare at the blank departure screen, I headed for the silver screen instead.

    I felt liberated. Give me a ticket for the next film, I said. The next feature was Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film ‘Parallel Mothers’. For the next two hours and three minutes I was transported away from the rain and the wind to sunny Madrid and the tale of two who give birth on the same day.

    By the time I emerged the information storm had settled down. There would be no trains today, and probably none tomorrow morning. Decision made for me: I would need to stay another night in London.

    Incompatible and incomplete information

    In a situation like this, when a system that usually runs in a steady state is knocked off course, then the information about that system is likely to be incompatible or incomplete. For instance, National Rail Enquiries showed some trains leaving Paddington, GWR said none leaving Paddington for now, others had simply crashed.

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  • Analogue Challenge 001: look for the time

    Analogue Challenge 001: look for the time

    On other people’s wrists, on clock towers, outside the jewellers, inside shops, at the station, on the scrolling news, from the position of the sun. Ask someone or make do not knowing, leaving plenty of time not to worry.

    Here’s the challenge. Spend a day getting by without checking the time on any device of your own. Of course the more analogue way is to use a watch, but the aim of the challenge here is to sharpen a range of other analogue skills that will make you more comfortable with be more self-sufficient and less reliant on devices to get you through the day.

    What are analogue skills?
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  • Analogue Skill 008: Be happy not knowing

    Analogue Skill 008: Be happy not knowing

    There’s a gap between certainty and doubt, and that is being happy not knowing. In this gap is space for discovery, serendipity, delight and the opportunity to grow confidence that you have everything you need. 

    I see the ability to be happy not knowing as a keystone analogue skill that supports other analogue skills and behaviours. Not knowing the weather, what’s on at the cinema, what your friends are doing, the headlines, what’s on TV, the fastest way to get there. Once we can wean ourselves off this need for certainty, we can become less dependent on our devices and more confident in encountering the world as we find it. 

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