Month: July 2021

On Infrastructure

Several years back, a friend of mine was taking his now-wife to meet his parents for the first time.

The journey to his parents’ house was not normally a lengthy one. But on this day, a bridge along the route was closed for repairs. So, my friend had to take an extended detour. This only added to the suspense.

I’ve heard this story quite a few times over the years. But each time, I keep focusing on a singular detail — the closed bridge.

You see, I’ve gone to my friend’s parents’ house on several occasions. Just about every time, I’ve driven across that bridge to get there.

It’s not a majestic causeway over a lake or a grand suspension bridge over a wide river. It’s a simple concrete slab — buffeted by short walls — that traverses a tiny creek.

On most days, this bridge is easy to miss. But on that day when it was out of commission, it was impossible to ignore.

This story shines a light on something that’s generally left in the shadows.

Infrastructure.

Our default condition is not to think about the infrastructure around us. After all, the structures that shelter us, the roads that carry us, the bridges that support us — all of these are supposed to just work.

Their continued functionality is not meant to be celebrated. It’s not even meant to be noted.

This means that we’re only paying attention when things go wrong. We only notice when a structure buckles, when a road fails, when a bridge is closed.

We grumble about how unreliable everything is at that moment. And we fail to account for the rest of the time, where everything was up to par.

This mindset is problematic. Because infrastructure is not like patio furniture. You can’t just set it out and leave it alone.

Continued investment is needed to keep things from breaking down. But getting the buy-in to maintain something we barely notice is challenging.

And so, we end up with the patchwork system we now have. Ambitious government legislation gets gutted to meet a lower price tag. Construction projects end up delayed. And a range of issues — from trivial inconveniences to outright disasters — ensue.

It’s tempting to point the finger in the wake of these organizational failures. It’s tantalizing to look for a scapegoat in these moments of calamity. But it’s important to turn the microscope on ourselves, as well.

What exactly do we want from the systems we use? And are we willing to commit to?

I love to drive.

To me, nothing compares to getting behind the wheel and watching the landscape fly by. Whether I’m driving a sports car, a sedan, or an SUV, that magical feeling never goes away.

Yet, several years back, I got another sensation when I buckled up and put the key in the ignition.

Dread.

You see, there was plenty of road construction in the Dallas area back then. In fact, all the highways near my home were under construction — at the same time.

Getting anywhere was a nightmare. I never knew when there would be lane closures. Giant construction vehicles continually clogged up the roads. And wayward nails in the roadway threatened my tires time and again.

It would have been one thing if this was all routine maintenance. But many of these projects were adding something new to these highways.

Toll lanes.

No, it wasn’t enough for these construction crews to maintain the existing roadway. They were also tasked to add something that would cost future drivers money. And in the process, that something that was costing all drivers plenty of precious time.

I was irate.

I wanted to scream at anyone who had approved such an agreement for leaving me in endless traffic jams. I wanted to give them the bills for all the tire repairs I endured.

But I soon realized the decision-makers who approved this project did not deserve my wrath.

They were tethered to the whims of the taxpayers. And those taxpayers needed to see something tangible for their money.

That’s what the toll lanes were for. They weren’t just a revenue source. They were a statement to the taxpayers. One that said Here, we built this.

I needed to come to terms with that fact.

In the late 1960s, a mysterious construction project grew from the Florida wilderness.

Thousands of acres near Orlando were transformed into a magical kingdom. A land that would soon bring happiness to millions upon millions.

Walt Disney World might have seemed like it appeared out of nowhere. But its staying power has been even more impressive.

Year after year, the Disney World theme parks are meticulously maintained. Everything looks as fresh today as it did in 1971 when the resort opened.

The secret to all this is not pixie dust. It’s infrastructure.

Disney World spends plenty of money to keep its parks shiny and new. And visitors help subsidize that cost by buying entry tickets, food, and souvenirs.

It’s easy to get this buy-in when there’s the power of Disney magic behind you. But how can we repeat the feat when there’s not?

What can inspire us to support maintenance on a bridge, rather than Cinderella’s castle?

It requires a shift in focus. It demands that we stop equating the visible with the vital and that we start paying attention to the details.

This is not a scintillating proposition. But it is an essential one.

For the alternatives are not feasible.

We cannot wait until our infrastructure fails us and calamity ensues. Such inaction will never be deemed acceptable.

And we should not rely on bells and whistles to get the required fixes underway either. We needn’t require toll lanes in the median just to ensure the highway pavement is replaced.

So, let’s lean in. Let’s take a fresh look at the status quo. And instead of shredding it, let’s think about how we can best maintain it.

A brighter future depends on what we do with our present. Let’s not waste it.

Lessons to Live By

As I got behind the wheel, I was terrified.

I had never driven a car before. And now, I was about to.

I was in as acceptable a setting I one could be for this process — the inside of a Driving School vehicle, with an instructor in the passenger seat. But still, I could only think of what would go wrong.

You see, the only driving experience I’d had before was in those racing games at the arcades. The ones with the loose steering wheel that would send you careening into a wall if you weren’t careful.

Once, I’d gone off the course in one of those games and plowed down an entire Redwood forest. Now, I was horrified about what damage I might inflict in real life.

After spending an eternity adjusting the car mirrors, I set out on the suburban roads. It didn’t go well.

I didn’t crash into any cars or run any stop signs. But there were enough close calls that a fellow student spent the next day telling anyone and everyone about how I’d almost killed her.

Humiliated, I pledged to do better. I ran through the instructions I’d been taught — check your mirrors and your blind spot, use your signal, go light on the gas and start braking early. I thought of how to best apply them when I was in the driver’s seat. And I followed those directives the next time I got into that driving school car.

This approach paid off. A few months after my ill-fated first drive, I passed my driver’s test. And I’ve spent years behind the wheel since then, mostly without incident.

I soaked up those driving lessons. I internalized them. I embodied them.

To me, they were not a set of suggestions. They were lessons to live by.

From our earliest days, we’re in a state of learning.

As infants, we must figure out how to walk, talk, and take care of ourselves. Once we get to school, we are educated on math, science, literature, and social studies. In our spare time, we might learn to fish, ice skate, or hit a curveball.

There are so many lessons headed our way that it’s hard to keep all the information internalized. So, some lessons will fade away over time, while others remain timeless.

I know this as well as anyone. For I am the son of teachers.

To be clear, my parents were far from overbearing. But they weren’t exactly hands-off either.

In my parents’ view, each day was an opportunity to learn something new. And so, they did their best to stimulate that continual improvement in me.

I learned plenty from my parents during my formative years. But three lessons from my father, in particular, have stuck with me.

  1. Don’t make the same mistake twice.
  2. Don’t pee in swimming pools.
  3. Don’t say you don’t like something until you try it.

These three edicts don’t seem to fit together. But they remain snug in my mind.

As I’ve grown up, I’ve remained open to new experiences. I’ve done my best to learn from my mistakes. And I haven’t even considered taking a leak in the pool.

I learned plenty in school as well — from the core tenets of algebra to the principles of democracy. And yet, of all those lessons, three directives from my third grade teacher loom largest.

  1. Stand up straight.
  2. Look people in the eye when you talk to them.
  3. Give a firm handshake.

I’ve forgotten the name of the penultimate Roman Emperor. And I can’t remember the symbol for Iron on the Periodic Table without looking it up. But the principles of good posture, eye contact and a firm handshake? Those have endured.

Lessons to live by always do.

What makes a lesson timeless? What gets it to click just right in our mind?

This is something I’ve long struggled to comprehend.

After all, the lessons we internalize become our charter. They help define the way others see us.

If we cling tightly to edicts of caution, we might avoid taking chances. If we set our memory receptors on math formulas instead, we could become savants in data science without any semblance of social skills.

Of course, it’s rarely that simple.

The lessons we live by are often a cocktail of advice. Some of the tips we take to heart might be practical. Others might give us an edge. Some might just be whimsical.

Each cocktail has its own distinct flavor. And that variation helps explain our divergent personalities.

In my case, the lessons I’ve internalized have kept me conscientious and polite. They’ve also inspired me to keep searching for improvement.

These qualities aren’t inherently good or bad. They’re just part of who I am. They’re key for how I see myself, and how others see me.

I wonder sometimes what my parents and teachers think about all this. Are they satisfied with the lessons I took to heart? Or do they wish some others had stuck instead?

Still, asking such questions misses the point.

The learning process is a set of inputs and outputs.

The material that’s taught to us represents the outputs. That information is foisted on us by others.

The inputs, on the other hand, are firmly within our control. If we have the will to engage with the information, we will do so. And the lesson will become internalized.

It’s futile to mess with this equation. Whether my parents or teachers gave me a piece of advice twice or twenty times was irrelevant. All that mattered was if I turned those outputs into inputs. And that was totally on me.

Similarly, I have dispelled plenty of advice throughout the 300 articles I’ve shared on Words of the West over the years. This advice has landed differently depending on who was viewing it.

I’m sure some articles had a profound effect on my audience, while others were met with a shrug. Perhaps some topics that were a yawner for some were pure gold for others.

The choice is yours, dear reader. You decide what sticks and what fades into oblivion. I’m just here to spur that decision, by giving you something to think about.

Perhaps then, that is the greatest lesson to live by. We can’t mandate what others will internalize. But we can guide them by providing material for consideration.

And in the end, that could prove to be enough.

Opportunities and Outcomes

We all sat in a school classroom on a rainy Saturday. In front of each of us was a booklet, a Scantron sheet, and some pencils.

As we waited for the go-ahead to start the SAT, I couldn’t help feeling that those of us in this classroom were at a point of divergence.

We all were about to embark on a great quest with this de-facto college entrance exam. But some of us were going to get every question right, and others were going to do much worse.

The opportunity was equal, but the outcome would not be.

When the scores came in, I wasn’t particularly close to the top. Any aspirations of going to a prestigious school were out the window.

In many places, such a development would spell disaster. But America has a wealth of options for someone in the situation I was in.

I ended up at a fantastic university — one with a palm-lined campus lined and a diverse student body. It was an experience that helped shape me. And it was an experience that defined the success I would see in adulthood.

The outcome was not guaranteed. But the opportunity was all I needed.

There are many things I’m not a fan of.

Fish tacos, cold showers, and the Houston Astros represent just a few.

But Communism is another.

You see, I was born at the tail-end of the Cold War. I’m too young to remember the Berlin Wall falling. But I know what that moment signified.

No longer would the model of equitable outcomes envelop the world. The model of equitable opportunities had won the day.

Communist models still persist in China, Cuba, and other nations. But the global ideological chess game has softened considerably.

Still, if you look around America — the pinnacle of democracy and capitalism — you’d hardly know that the Cold War is behind us.

A full generation after the fall of the U.S.S.R., many Americans are still unclear what was won. They fail to understand the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

The recent battles over history curriculums in schools illustrates this precisely.

In the wake of protests in the name of social justice, schools are taking a fresh look at our past. History is typically written by the victors, and that is as true in America as anywhere else. We’ve maintained a rosy view of the past without considering its discriminatory undercurrents. The collective project to teach our history more candidly is meant to change all that.

I don’t have an issue with this approach. Education is a better way to address the sins of our past than wiping its remnants away. And such an approach has worked before. Notably, it helped postwar Germany reckon with the horrors of the Nazi era.

Still, many others do not share my view. They’ve labeled such reforms Critical Race Theory. And they’ve claimed that educators are imposing socialism on our society. This has led to heated debates at school board meetings across America. And it has caused many states to restrict changes to historical curriculums.

These developments both amuse and sadden me.

The ideal behind the curriculum changes is equity of opportunity. Educators want to promote a fair playing field, which was sorely lacking during the eras of slavery and segregation. Only by reckoning with that contradiction can we escape its doom cycle in the generations to come.

And yet, Critical Race Theory opponents view the curriculum updates as promoting equity of outcome. They feel such changes are tantamount to providing handouts to some, rather than a fair chance at success to all. They see it as a betrayal of the democracy that they’ve benefitted from.

It’s tempting to point a finger at the misguided. It’s satisfying to call out their privilege and their bigotry. It’s easy to demonstrate that Critical Race Theory is, in fact, something entirely different than what these proposed changes advocate.

But such pettiness misses the point.

If we can’t tell between opportunities and outcomes — if we can’t distinguish between the starting gates and the finish line — then we’ve all lost.

I grew up with the blessing of good fortune.

I wasn’t born into wealth or prominence. But I found myself with an abundance of opportunity.

I had the freedom to pursue my dreams without anyone putting up roadblocks in my way. It was a luxury that sadly was not commonplace.

As I progressed through elementary school, my dreams gravitated around the game of baseball. I hadn’t participated in Little League, but I was determined to make up for lost time.

I spent plenty of hours playing catch or working on my batting stance. And all this preparation paid off. I became a full-fledged member of my middle school baseball team.

But by the time I got to high school, it was clear the dream was fading. I had a long swing at the plate, and I was slow to read fly balls in the field. Plus, I threw from a funky arm angle, causing the ball to tail off at the last minute.

The Junior Varsity baseball coach added me to the team after tryouts, but as a player-manager. I only got three pinch-hit at bats, although I singled in two of them.

The next spring, the door closed on my baseball exploits. The coach cut me from the team after tryouts.

I could see the pain in the coach’s eyes as he gave me the news. I had worked on fielding with him over the summer. I had joined the cross-country team — which he also coached — in the fall to stay in shape. I had been a model teammate and done everything he’d asked of me.

But I wasn’t any good. And my presence on the team would deny someone else the opportunity to suit up and play.

I should have been devastated by all this. I should have been distraught at the dashing of my dreams.

But instead, I was grateful.

I was grateful for the opportunities that I was given. I was grateful to be held accountable for what I did with those opportunities. And I was grateful that this outcome would give someone else an opportunity to do better on the diamond.

I was an immature teenager, still finding myself and my way in the world. And yet, I knew the difference between opportunity and outcome. And I understood the dual importance of maintaining a fair playing field and judging results on merit.

This isn’t rocket science. I’m sure millions of other Americans could figure this out too.

But this requires us to look inward. To think for ourselves, rather than parrot the words of others. To provide for others what was granted for us, rather than guard it under lock and key.

I don’t know what it will take for us to get to this point. The forces tearing us apart are the same ones keeping us from such introspection.

But I truly hope that we will be there someday. That we will understand that the principles of merit-based achievement on a level playing field is the most American concept of all. And that we will do all we can to make that happen.

Our future depends on it.

Breaking Contain

On my television screen, I watched the opposing team break their huddle. They then lined up opposite the defensive players of my favorite team.

The opposing quarterback barked out some instructions, and the lineman snapped him the football. The quarterback looked around and saw nowhere to throw the ball. So he darted to the left edge of the field as defenders converged upon him.

Great, I thought. We’ve got him!

But as the quarterback neared the white paint of the sideline, he turned the corner with a burst of speed. Now, he was racing past my team’s defenders for a touchdown.

As I sat there, stunned, I overheard the TV commentator breaking down the play.

As a defense, you’ve got to set the edge, he said. You can’t break contain.

That phrase — Break contain — sounded strange to me. It was nothing more than two verbs smashed together. And yet, it perfectly described what had befallen my favorite team in the moment.

As the season went on, I found more commentators using that phrase to describe a capitulation in defensive technique. Apparently, Break Contain is common lingo in football circles.

That said, it might have some legs in other areas as well.

Not long ago, the United States government released a declassified report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena — what we commonly call UFOs.

The government documented strange instances in the skies that it couldn’t identify. Then, it listed five possible explanations for them: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. government/industry programs, foreign adversarial systems, and “other.”

Many people reading the report fixated on that “other” category since theories about extraterrestrial life would fall under it. But I was fascinated by the U.S. government programs category.

Here was the United States government — an entity with an endless trove of information — saying it didn’t know the scope of its own operations. Effectively, some military or research exercises could have been classified as UFO sightings, and our guess was as good as the government’s as to what was actually happening.

This was stunning to me. Had the government broken contain?

I had never really considered the implications of that before. Sure, the government had many secretive programs —the Manhattan Project, CIA Black Ops, sealed FBI indictments. But there was always some entity overseeing the task. Someone was in the know, even if that person swore that they knew nothing.

But the thought of these programs running rogue? That was truly terrifying.

U.S. government operations being confused for UFOs would just be the tip of the iceberg. All kinds of other calamities might potentially result. After all, this is the equivalent of an airport without air traffic controllers or a freeway without entrance ramps.

But then again, things might be just fine. For there are many entities that break contain regularly, without the ensuing mass calamity.

For instance, Google uses machine learning for its search engine algorithms. Even the engineers overseeing that product have no precise understanding of how it works in the wild anymore. Artificial intelligence has taken over the show.

And weather patterns often vary a bit from the forecasts meteorologists put together. Pop-up thunderstorms and wind gusts are phenomena that can’t always be precisely predicted. Only Mother Nature determines what actually comes next.

Examples like these bring variety to our lives. By removing absolute predictability, they keep us agile. This, in turn, makes us sharper and better.

So perhaps, breaking contain is not something to fret over. It might even be something worthy of applause.

If breaking contain can work so well, why did that moment on the football field go so poorly?

Much of it has to do with what happened after the opposing quarterback turned the corner.

At that point, Plan A was finished. The defenders had succeeded in preventing the quarterback from throwing the ball. But they hadn’t kept him from advancing up the field with a head of steam.

It was a decidedly mixed result. One that the coaches would surely revisit in practice later.

But Plan B was still on the table. There was still an opportunity to minimize the damage.

While the opposing quarterback was charging down the field, he had few teammates nearby to clear the way for him. So defenders had an excellent chance to bring down the quarterback if they all sprinted in his direction.

Yet, Plan B didn’t happen. It wasn’t even attempted.

At the moment of truth, the defenders were mesmerized. And they practically gifted their opponent a touchdown.

This was a failure of execution. But it was also a failure of preparation.

The team had clearly never considered what would happen if the opponent broke contain. There was no damage mitigation strategy.

Meanwhile, other entities that might find themselves in a similar situation — Google’s search division, the U.S. government, meteorologists — are prepared for when things take a left turn. Through a well-practiced game plan, they can manage what chaos might ensue. This allows them to cede absolute control, but not absolute responsibility.

Therein lies the conundrum of breaking contain — it’s only effective if there are guardrails to mitigate the damage. Bending without breaking is key.

My favorite football team had no such guardrails in place. So, when the opposing quarterback beat the defenders to the edge of the field, they were done for.

Why focus on breaking contain? Why allow for the chaos that comes from agility?

Because staying rigid is no less risky.

A system of centralized controls might seem airtight. But should the figurehead in charge fail, the system will fail with it. It’s boom or bust.

We understand this, and we try to plan for it. Succession plans for companies and data backup redundancies for computer networks are two examples of such planning.

But all too often, these solutions are labeled as Emergency Options. And that makes people reluctant to break the glass.

Such reluctance does us little good.

The question shouldn’t be whether our best-laid plans might someday go to waste. The question should be about what happens when they do.

So, let’s test our boundaries. Let’s break contain. And then, let’s focus on the fixes we can make once the best case scenarios are already out the window.

A stumble is survivable. A capitulation is not.