Dynamicness

Some things are sort of intrinsically dynamic, and this can be scary but might have to be confronted.

1. Example 1: Snowboarding

I've only been snowboarding twice, but a key lesson I had to learn / unlearn was that doing something more slowly, or in a way that's more stop-safe, is NOT necessarily safer.

If there's a steep part of the hill, you have two options:

  • You could go down it with the board facing fairly straight down, which makes you go really fast;
  • Or, you could try to slow down by weaving back and forth.

Going straight is scary because it's faster. But weaving is often MORE risky: if you catch the downhill edge of your board on the snow, you flip forward onto your face downhill, which SUCKS. Also, weaving takes more effort on your ankles / legs than going straight, which tires you out and makes it easier for you to lose control and flip. So trying to make it be the case that at any point you COULD stop immediately is NOT necessarily safer. Sometimes it's best to just say "ok for the next 20 seconds, I'm committed to going fast / not stopping, unless something really crazy happens".

2. Example 2: Bouldering

Some moves are intrinsically dynamic.

E.g., there is a handhold that's a bit too high up, so it's out of reach; that is, there's no way to gradually scootch upward and then slowly reach up and grab ahold of it. Instead, you can reach it by sort of jumping, or moving up quickly and using your momentum to move up even when you temporarily no longer actually have your hands or feet solidly on a hold.

If you try to "static" it, by inching up, it doesn't work. You have to commit to the movement, and temporarily give up the ability to locally backtrack. That's scary because you're very likely to fall if you don't successfully get the high hold.

3. Example 3: Events

Events with a lot of people are messy, chaotic, and fast-moving, especially from the perspective of the organizer. There's a temptation to just STOP everything. Just PAUSE. Let me think for an hour, and take a nap, and check in with my volunteers, and print some things out, and rethink the room assignments, and...

But no, that doesn't make sense. It's not an option. The event is already in motion; however many tens or hundreds of people are already DOING the event. You can't pause it without killing it. Sure, things are going wrong, and you want to fix them, and it would be better if they were fixed, and people are getting annoyed. But also, people are already running the event themselves (fixing some things, at least; and carrying out the purpose of the event). It's better than stopping. It's a living organism, or whatever that cliche is. It's a mighty river that can be redirected or shepherded but not stymied. It has its momentum. You're riding the wave, not pushing the wave. You're riding the elephant; you can nudge it this way or that way, but you can't really tell it what to do; or you can get off of it, but it won't wait around for you.

4. Conclusion

I value the ability to slow way down, relative to everything else, and just think. That lets me see things others don't.

But, that makes it helpful for me to keep in mind dynamicness as a useful mode.

Cf. "Step, leap".