Get Your Hands Dirty

Paralysis by Analysis and Talking About Relationships in the Abstract

“Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.” - Immanuel Kant

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The other day I went and got myself a shawarma at the best place in town. What sets it above the rest is not only how they season the meat, but all the additional toppings you can get. Most shawarma places have the standard fare of lettuce, tomatoes, pickled turnip, red onions, parsley and garlic sauce, but this place also offers two types of taboulee, roasted red pepper hummus, lemon potatoes and more. As trite as this sounds, it really does create a symphony of flavors in your mouth.

However, as good as it is, it isn't what it used to be.

The restaurant was sold about a 7 or 8 years ago at this point. All the recipes were sold with it, but it isn't the same. The restaurant used to be owned by my buddy's family with his mother at the helm. She was well into her fifties and had been cooking professionally since her teenage years. She had cooked for crown princes in the Middle East and had not only an astounding amount of knowledge, but a wealth of experience that only comes with a life spent in the kitchen.

Every dish was carefully calibrated to maximize the balance of flavors and, when all assembled into a shawarma, was nothing short of heavenly.

It made me realize that you can hand anybody a recipe to follow, but the execution is a matter of experience.

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen myself and teach all my children how to cook. Reflecting on how I teach them, I realized that techniques and ingredients are a very minimal part of my guidance— constantly tasting and calibrating is how the majority of my time teaching is spent.

It is essentially a fast paced OODA loop for food.

OODA Loops

Why use my own words when some rando website articulated it so well?

From www.techtarget.com:

“The OODA loop -- Observe, Orient, Decide and Act -- is a four-step approach to decision-making that focuses on filtering available information, putting it in context and quickly making the most appropriate decision, while also understanding that changes can be made as more data becomes available”.

Basically, this is the autistic breakdown of the decision making process. We all do this instinctively to some extent, but many of our decisions can be made emotionally on faulty mental models.

By breaking down the decision making process down as such, one can reflect on their actions, apply knowledge and theory, make a decision for an optimal outcome and execute it.

This is by no means a smooth process, nor is it meant to be. This is a process that repeats over and over again, getting quicker and more efficient as reps are put in. This is the training of the decision making progress until it becomes instinctive.

This is “calibration”.

This is training your decision making ability to adjust in situation.

We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.

Get Your Hands Dirty

Regardless of the skill, whether it be cooking, playing an instrument or maintaining a healthy relationship, having a base of theory under your belt is beneficial to prohibit you from acting like a fucking spaz throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

However, without actual in-situation practice you are just mentally masturbating. You are speaking in the abstract. You are passing the recipe along.

I see it all the time in this space. Men writing about relationships without having the faintest idea of what they are talking about. They are repeating talking points and statistics like a MSNBC pundit. So called “experts” in a field whose real life experience is limited to what they have read.

Don't take my word for it. At the end of the day, even though I have the knowledge and experience to get into the weeds, I'm just passing along the recipe as well. Go out there and get your hands dirty. Internalize what is useful and tweak or discard what is not. While I hope that through my writing I can provide that base theory, experience is going to be your greatest teacher. Running OODA loops backed by theory is how you are going to train your decision making ability. Theory and experience go hand in hand.

Now go out there and get that experience.

Get shot down.

Fail the shit test.

You'll be better for it.