Pounding the understable into the tangible

Expounding on idea. Expounding a concept. Ex, pound. Harshness.

This word popped into my head today as I was walking from an impromptu tutorial on Photoshop Vector tool usage to my office. The word comes from the latin "ex-", which means 'out from' or 'put forth'. Since it comes to English by way of French, I suspect it's part of the French invasion of words from the 1066 hubbub. That also explains why it's considered higher language than explain or even elaborate.

The word strikes me as having something to do with striking. A pound after all generally refers to a sound smack with something blunt. Since expound doesn't actually come from the same root, being tied instead to the root of words like "position," I guess it's not a perfect tie in to the title of this entry. Nevertheless, I'll proceed.

Expound also rings (and in my experience is usually pronounced like) 'exbound,' which isn't a word. To my mind, exbound sounds more fun though, like breaking the boundaries and going into the unknown. That doesn't suit the definition well though. Exbound would make more sense as a verb cousin of tangent. Maybe next year Webster will give it a try.

Moving on, I'm trying to decide whether phrases like 'pounding it out' make me think of dumb brutes pounding a square peg in a round hole or smart people working hard to get something done. Maybe it's a phrase invented by someone really, really smart (or just clear minded at the moment of coining) who recognized the inability of people to really understand things completely. Knowing this, everyone is always pounding things out to a lesser or greater extent.

We do a lot of pounding, people that is. A smart guy I used to work with once said, "If something is really difficult the way you're trying to do it, you're probably doing it the wrong way." Put another way, if you find yourself pounding rather than placing, something about your method is likely wrong. I tend to agree with this. Being a guy whose intelligence, or at least whose access to such, is determined largely by the amount of sleep I've had and the amount of time that has past since I had it, I also recognize that our ability to determine what is pounding and what isn't is limited.

Beyond that though, at some point, everything requires effort. If you're an algorithm writer, you recognize some methods as being more efficient. In fact, there may be an optimal method for accomplishing this or that within the confines of human understanding and ability. That said, whether you use the optimal route or not, you can get the work done. Like Amelia Earhart said, "The most effective way to do it is to do it." I think there's a wisdom in that as well. In between the optimal and the passable is a range of successful possibilities. As a guy who doesn't live in an ivory tower and who deals with the nuts and bolts more so than the theories and concepts, I find that shooting for the optimal against all odds often leaves you overextended. Likewise, shooting for the passable leaves you, well, so far in my experience rarely at a loss.

Having said that I will follow by saying also that I never shoot for the passable. In fact, I try to make the distance between the optimal and the reality as small as possible. Yet, I can't help but glance at the work being done in other places by other developers, even at work being done in other industries that doesn't even attempt to adhere to a standard other that functional.

Walmart is a prime example. Their products are far from the best. They don't pay especially well. However, they get things done to a base requirement. This is true of lots of the off-shore development work I've seen. Heck, it's true of lots of on-shore development. I used to work for a "high end" web shop that often produced stuff that was only just functional. Did anyone care? Did anyone but people like me even notice? Not so much.

However, I also look to places that really excel at this or that and I see a higher than necessary level of competence in the work. Taking the two ends of the spectrum together, I can only put together that there is a curve of effectiveness, of rightness. At the one end, the rightness is low, but the effort is also low. At the other end, the rightness is higher and the effort is higher. The things that seems to swing the curve is the intelligence of the people doing the work, the ability of the people doing the work to apply that intelligence, and the amount of experience the gang has in doing the type of work.

I guess this isn't really surprising. Toddlers pound before they place as does anyone honing a skill.

Anyway, I'm pressed for time (real world nuts and bolts at work), so I have to wrap this up. The bottom line is that for people who only deal in concepts, optimal is attainable. For whoever has to translate that idea to something real, the challenge is greater. Imagine a perfect solution to a real world problem and then try to build exactly that solution and you will immediately find snares and snags that complicate things. Many of such snares are things like the human attention span or the imperfection of what's already there just to name two.

It's the task of the builder to navigate the snares as deftly and completely as possible to deliver something as close to optimal as possible. For you pure concept folks out there, your task is to define what is passable and what is optimal and to know up front what point in between those to you will accept. The idea person expounds the concept while the implementation person pounds out the tangible product.

When I get all steamed up

I write things. You don't need to tip me over. You don't need to pour me out. I'll handle that myself. This should be posted on my site, but I like to break things up. If nothing else, it will increase my search engine visibility and make it even more likely that when someone searches for "jackson gabbard" they get nothing by me. No dead Kentuckians, no products or companies. No elementary school kids from North Carolina. Just the freelance web developer and designer.

This post comes as an interlude between work and work. Paula Dean is tasting hot peppers on TV across the room and commenting about how if he picks her nose right now, the front of her face will catch on fire. One would think her face would incur chemical burns first and probably never actually catch fire. For skin, and most things, to burn, they have to be completely desiccated. Nothing about Paula Dean seems to be that way, aside from her hair that is.

Today I encountered some word use I hadn't heard in a long time (circumspect, assiduous, etc.). Uncommon words with highly specific meanings are treasures. As such, you can't just go flaunting them around in mixed company. For one, doing so marks you as an elitist, a show off. Secondly, most people can't understand you. Like Dave Chappelle once overstated in a skit, "I cain't understaaand yoooo. Go back where you came from." Or something like that. When you present someone with something they can't understand that they also recognize they can't understand because they aren't as educated as you, well, you get a reaction.

That said, I was happy to hear that some people keep the other 90% of the English lexicon alive. The dictionary is a bit like a word museum. Once something gets pulled from public view and placed in a museum, it becomes dated and unfamiliar. Pulling the words out of their glass display cases and jamming them in there with the vocabulary of the peanut gallery once in a while does everyone some good.

It reminds the speaker of the boundaries in communication and reminds the listener that there are words beyond what the average person hears that can achieve communication more quickly. Of course, if the person doesn't know the word then it becomes a stumbling point. Like my friend Laurie mentioned, if you have to label it (in this case, explain it), you have failed. I don't know that I agree with that 100% though. You have failed at communicating at 100% efficiency, but you have succeeded in exposing someone to something new. There is value is broadening people's horizons.

Speaking of altering perspectives, I'm becoming a sociopath. Actually, I suppose I should say I'm returning to sociopathy. I'm probably overstating, but the practicing sociopath in me doesn't care how you feel about it. It's not my concern whether you take away a perfect understanding or not. Succeeding in business requires this of me. I spent years breaking myself of thew inclination to disregard the way other people feel about things I affect only to find that many of the people I work for are disregarding the way I feel. To them I say, be a wolf, get a wolf. Or rather, get a smart guy interested in not getting eaten to the point of being willing to eat you first. Sorry, compassion complicates my sociopathy, so it has to be conditionally applied.

There's personal growth inherent in the process, of course. Controlling my emotional reaction to threats and dealing with things on a professional plane only is tricky for me. According to research, it's tricky for everyone since we're irrational, emotional creatures. However, I want to be a commercially successful irrational creature, so I'm having to learn to feign rationality when things heat up so I don't do something impulsive that costs me in the long run. When someone tries to take advantage of me, I have to see the opportunity in the adversity (thanks for the reminder Einstein) and make the situation work for me. If I can't make it work at all, I have to walk away.

The compassionate person in me wants to help the advantage-taker see what they are doing, the victim in me wants to defend myself Malcolm X style, and the eager beaver in me wants to make the person happy, even if that means giving everything away. The business man in me has to win and find the solution that resolves the situation as much as possible without sacrificing me, my time, or any money. Then, after I get the check, I can revisit thoughts of any means necessary and education.

This is very unlike me. If you're doing something awful, I want to help you see how and why. I don't want to just make you behave how I want you to. However, I'm dealing now with adults whom it's not my responsibility to raise. Or at least, whom it's not my business' responsibility to raise. So, the wolf gets to call the shots. I suppose a better metaphor is the fox though, they're much cleverer. Maybe some sort of hybrid--the brains of the fox, the body and bite of the wolf. Wolfox? Folf? Wolx? I suppose a clever conjoining of the nouns isn't requisite for the idea to sink in, but it would be funner.

Whether it takes a wolf, a fox, or a manatee, I have to keep my eyes open, my pulse level, and my sociopath switch ready to flip. You might want something, but if you didn't pay for it, you're not getting it. Even if that means I have to fire you. Lesson learned there.

I realize now that I've just made a faux pas (fox paws?). 'Whether' followed by three options? What sort of self-respecting English degree holder am I? Every Tom, Dick, and Harry knows the etymology of 'whether' hearkens back to the phrase 'which of two,' much like 'either' and 'neither.' 'Whether' followed by three options. What's next--dilemma with four alternatives? Sheesh. Please accept my deepest apologies for the error. Though, if you desire some sort of recompense jingling in hand for the mistake, you might instead find a brief and brisk application of the canines.