It Might Get Messy

There are two conceptual foundations solving problems. The first one—most important, but also most difficult and often impossible to implement—is to invoke a metasolution. A metasolution changes the basic rules of the game. You step back from the immediate issue at hand, identify a completely transformational formulation of the problem, and go right ahead and do it.

Classic example of a metasolution is when Captain Kirk reprogrammed the Star Fleet Academy software to save his ship in a test intended to be impossible to survive. A more mundane example? Maybe your house is on a wooded lot, little sunlight reaches the soil surface, and what turf grass there is is scruffy and sloppy. One solution might be to lose the grass completely and plant native, shade-loving perennials in a dense English-style garden. Bang! You know longer have to deal with the problem of ephemeral landscaping. You’ve fixed it so it is no longer a problem!

The alternative to the metasolution is the slogging solution. This is by far the dominant method of problem solving. It’s the one where you stare at the snapped off bolt head, sigh, and realize you’re going to have to re-tap the bolt stem in place. While at the same time you’re wishing some magical fairy would show up to extract the bolt, accept a small gratuity, and let you get back to work. 

I find myself increasingly drawn to an analogy between war and medicine. On its face, this is clearly ridiculous. Wars are agglomerations of systems, all intended to kill, injure, or break anything that gets in the way. Medicine in the broadest sense is the benign engineering end of science. Engineering also produces high-spec infrastructure for freeways and bridges allowing us to travel, communicate, and place goods and services where and when needed. And those orders, of course, reflect not ony the he stream of doctors and nurses, but the bridges, rails, roadways and runways that let us function as a coherent society. 

Unfortunately, despite a depressingly short string of hopeful Hollywood hype pushing various cancer “miracle drugs”,they don’t actually work. Any statistical alteration in tumors is related directly heavy doses of such medications, not to homeopathic magic or some cramped up djinn released from his bottle early. 
But let us not get ahead of ourselves here. 

Things are about to get incredibly technically complex as we move into what will now be the third round of drastic cancer treatment. Suffice to say, I’m gonna feel like shit, and the odds on meaningful recovery are low. Why, that’s the perfect format for a weblog like this! So I’m letting you off easy this week. But as things move to what is surely going to be the front line and leap out of the muddy trenches, screaming the whole time, I’ll be taking  you all along with me. Get ready to go to hell in a bucket baby. But at least will be able to enjoy the smegging ride! 

Remember I love you. And I’m looking forward to seeing as many of you as I can over the coming months. I’m gonna look like an aged, decrepit old plague.But my brain’ll be similn’ every I see the kids reading a book from the shelf, or looking under a log for a ringneck snake. That’ll mean my work here is almost done. And that I’ll see you on this side of the, and  few pence later, on the far shore.

ROCK AND SMEGGING ROLE, EVERYBODY!!!