no try, only do (actually trying part 3)

In Star Wars, Master Yoda swats young Luke Skywalker and tells him - there is no try, there is only do.

I have some beef with Yoda. Some of the best doing is trying. Experimenting. Testing. Almost none of us is possessed of a telekinetic birthright. We can’t move X-wings with our minds, no matter how many times a grandpa troll in a bathrobe hits us with a stick. We have to attempt a bunch of different approaches and see what works. We probably have to recruit other people and use better tools and then use those tools better.

I have respect for Yoda, too. The line would be less pithy and iconic if he had said « Trying is for suckers. Actually Trying is for pros. » but it would still hold water. Relatedly, in a kung fu training sequence in The Matrix, Morpheus tells Neo « stop trying to hit me and hit me! »

Here’s what I think the deal is for these teachers and their protégés: trying is no good if it’s hopeless pretending. If you don’t think the problem can be solved and you’re just clocking in futilely at Solveproblem, Inc. And if you think the solving depends on something innate and immutable in you, some special stuff that you either have or you don’t, rooted in genetics or The Force or luck.

Trying is just the thing, when you believe the problem can be solved and you’re committed to solving it, without clinging to a fragile story of yourself as The Cosmically Endowed Solver. You’re just a channel for ways the thing can happen. The things you’re endowed with are a head and a heart that make you pay attention to the problem in the first place and then can shut the heck up while you sort out the problem.

-eric