Lessons from an archer

One of the persistent images seen in many of our mythological stories is that of an archer drawing an arrow on a stretched bow string, in full concentration. I sometimes use that as a metaphor to teach my students.?

A lot of students and youngsters are eagerly focused on the results they want to see at the target. They are the audience at an archery competition waiting with bated breath. Eyes are glued on the target, anticipating where the arrow would fall.?

The real work; of course, is happening silently at the other end. The archer is standing there with full intense concentration. He is doing something quite odd: He is stretching the bow-string and moving the arrow behind, just so that the arrow would then go ahead.?

Let us unpack this!

Here is a lesson: If you want your process to go forward, we need to first have a process of moving back!? Back into theories. Back into fundamentals. You even have to stretch all the way back to a unique starting point; which I will get to in a moment.

But the audience is not particularly knowledgeable about all this. They are eagerly staring at the target. The results are important of course. But more important are the processes that lead to the result!?

Time and again, I am seeing youngsters starting ONLY at what they see in the results. But not what really the archer is up to.?

So here is that eternal moment of intense silence. Nobody is talking, as everyone is hoping for a great result. Both the audience and the archer.?

He has now reached that unique end point and he got that perfect moment, when he releases the arrow.?

Let us examine this in more detail. In a regular bow and arrow, there is a subtle, but ever present block that comes up.?

The material of the bow itself is actually blocking the view of the target. The arrow is along the side of the bow and not thru the bow.

So the archer actually has to make a fine adjustment to decide which way the material of the bow has to point; and in which direction the arrow has to point. It is a tough call.?

Then there is gravity at work on the arrow. And the elastic springiness of the arrow itself. When the arrow is released, it flexes up and down like a vibrating string. The archer has to guage the distance and he has to closely know the nature of the vibrations of the moving arrow. By the time it reaches the target, ideally the arrow-head must line up with the bulls-eye.?

But if the archer is not able to guage the amplitude and frequency of those vibrations; the arrow may unluckily hit the target on the ascent of an oscillation (or a descent), instead of precisely on the node of the oscillation.?

That error would skew the final location where it would hit the target.?It is indeed a tough call to be an archer! He would need all the concentration, and calm!?

All our work that we do as professionals -- as architects, software developers, etc --- our work runs thru the entire process from the drawn arrow stretched all the way back by an archer, with the arrow oscillating along towards the target.??

The problem in the complex, information era that we are all in; this entire process is now broken up.?

The archer is not the same as the one who is at the other end. The archer may be a software developer who is doing a lot of that work, and the Internet or a software on your computer is the medium thru which the arrow flies.?

Finally, here is the professional; who ever so often is only staring at the end result and waiting for the magic to happen. How it happens is not his concern -- or so he thinks. Many professionals simply look at software as some kind of magical blackbox which is doing some work. "Oh, I am sure they must have figured it all out. I am not the only user, right?"?

Multiply that by thousands of software users who arrive at the same conclusion, and you have what is known as the paradox of unanimity: If everyone unanimously think that is how software works, then surely there are some systemic errors that were missed.?

But in all realizations of all such processes, there are various blockages and oscillations of the arrow. The software developer, for example; is quite blissfully unaware of the material of the bow that is actually blocking his understanding.?

The software developer often is NOT the same domain as the professional at the other end. In my field; that of architecture, much of the highly touted software were never written by practising architects!?This is not a matter of my ego vs someone else's Not fully immersed in a complex subject as architecture is bound to generate serious blocks.

The arrow that was released from the software is not flying straight but is oscillating up and down; between various versions of "truth" and we are leaving a huge responsibility on the tiny shoulders of the archer-software developer to guage how the process would unfold.

And most importantly, the archer has to reach that unique point all the way back where he releases the arrow. The archer must be sure by then that all the parameters were considered and he has communicated that to all the parties and now is confident to release the arrow.?

Therefore, at that point one should see clear linguistic representation of the problem. A lot of problems happen, when the communication and therefore checking of the parameters were not fully done or improperly done. That is the point at which the archer is metaphorically asking his own gurus, and others involved in the project whether the arrow can be released or not. So it is a fine issue of linguistics, i.e. representation, out there.

If you have to conquer your inner demons, remove misunderstandings that block you and navigate the oscillations of self-doubt, you need to be empathetic to the archer too -- and also the entire process that is happening out there. And reach that exact starting point to release your arrow where you have clearly communicated the issues you are solving. Just staring at the target expectantly and ignoring the rest of the process simply will not do!

Happy Dussehra!