A Post a Day

"Let's go to Neptune!"

Methinks I shall enter a new project. I like new projects.

They allow me to say goodbye to old projects, because who wants something old and tired and done, anyway? New projects are a way to organise the flotsam of the mind, to shove to one side (or throw overboard altogether) all the detritus that has accumulated since the old New Project.

 What shall I call this new project? I think I'll call it "A Post A Day For A Month."

That means that I have to force myself each day to find something either to entertain you right here in this space, or entertain myself right here in this space.

Of course, I've tried that before, but it never quite got off to a good start. And I hate projects that don't get off to a good start.

Getting projects to work means making lots of preparations in case they should fail. In fact, that's where most of the planning lies, which is completely counter-intuitive, if you think about it.

Designers of a rocket program to Neptune shouldn't start the program thinking about all the ways in which it could fail. But they do. In fact, they have to. In fact, if you think about it, they have to spend more time thinking about ways to prevent failure than ways to achieve success. Will the rocket blow up on the launch pad?

Engineers planning a project. In this case, Me (left) and my two brothers
(Geoff, lawyer, in the middle, and Chris, deceased, on the right, in Baalbek, Lebanon, c. 1963)

Well, Engineer A is going to say "Look, if we're going to start dwelling on all the ways it might fail to get off the ground, then why bother to even start? We've predicted its failure before we've even begun."

Engineer B will say "This is short-sighted thinking. Of course we want the rocket to get off the ground. We just don't want to rush into it with big dreams, spend a lot of time and effort building the thing, only to have it explode in a maelstrom of LOX, Helium and shards of composites."

Engineer C will say "I love watching explosions. There's a terrible beauty in them." Engineer A and Engineer B will put their cigarettes out in Engineer C's jelly doughnut.

That's how projects take shape, and I'm sure that's exactly what's going to happen to this one, except Engineers A, B and C are all me. You see how that works?