Deep in the experience of editing my fourth novel—a painful iterative process, I assure you—I’m reminded once more of a human element that seems to have always been there, since the very beginning of time. Staring at the same words, the same paragraphs over and over again, seeking with each pass to make the passages more concise, more evocative, eventually I come to despise the whole thing. Really, by the time a novel is ready for publication, I’m quite sick of it!
But there’s an interesting element of human perception at work here that’s worth looking at for a minute. There’s something deeper than just the build-up of fatigue following an arduous experience. There is almost a sense that the better I know the work, the more faults I see, the less I like it.
Historical podcaster Dan Carlin once stated that the more we know about an ancient civilization the more complex it appears to us. His point was essentially that the more information we have on a given subject, the more we see and understand the complexities that a lack of knowledge allowed us to gloss over and simplify. Don’t believe him? Take the Romans, a very well-documented civilization and, from our point of view, quite complex in its governing mechanisms, religious beliefs, social connections, and the way those all interact with one another. Contrast that with the ancient Sumerian civilization, of which very little data survives. The lack of information leads to a simplistic picture of what those people and their society were actually like. Yet more recent research indicates the ancient Sumerians were probably every bit as complex a culture since they were dealing with the exact same type of governmental, religious, and societal strains.
In a real sense the expression “the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence” is derivative of that same idea. Standing on tiptoe and peeking over the fence at the neighbor’s lawn makes it appear ideal. The perfect shade of green. The perfect thickness. Even the perfect height maintained by the perfect teenagers pushing their perfect lawn mower . . . you get the idea. Yet in reality, your neighbor looks out at that same lawn and sees what, exactly? The burned patch near the patio. The perennial brown spot where the dogs keeping urinating. That stubborn quadrant where the crabgrass just refuses to die. He knows every inch of his yard, and so his eyes are drawn to those trouble areas.
Our minds just seem to work that way, in all areas of life. “Why is my family so strange?” I’ve heard before, or even, “Why is our organization so messed up?” These questions rely upon a comparative analysis, but it’s not a fair one, is it? We know every detail, every scandal, every skeleton in the closet of our family members, providing a very “real” assessment. Compared to those around us, then, we get the sense that we’re strange, abnormal, or otherwise just off. Yet this isn’t really a reasonable comparison, is it? We don’t know—to that same level of detail—what’s going on behind closed doors with those other families, do we? We assume, based on what we observe, that they’re somehow more perfect, or worse, more “normal” than ours.
Yet what happens the minute you start spending time with those folks? The weirdness comes to the surface, doesn’t it? In dribs and drabs, all the details you’d previously not known—or which had been intentionally hidden from you—come to light and they seem less and less perfect. The boy’s failing math. The wife drinks too much. The husband has a gambling problem. And they’ve got an uncle in prison for molesting sheep. The more you learn the less “perfect” the family seems.
The same is true for organizations. We live and work in these environments and, within a relatively short period of employment, can recite a growing list of what’s wrong with them. Who doesn’t pull their fair share of work. Why senior management makes such stupid decisions. How little we’re being paid. Why the guy in accounting keeps reheating fish in the corporate microwave. The list goes on and on and, in conversation at least, usually leads to comparison with other organizations, other companies, other places of work. The grass always looks greener over there, precisely because we don’t know the details. The details that so often make the difference between a good place to work and a bad one. Yet those details—or rather our perception of them—can drive us to make decisions that affect not only us but also our families as well.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stared at a draft and wondered why I was wasting my time. Why endure the self-induced stress and pain? It’s easy to go back and read some of my favorite novels—Steven Pressfield’s “Gates of Fire” or James Clavell’s “Shogun”—and see only perfection. It can be a bit depressing. But the reality is that even though I’ve read each of those books multiple times, I’m nowhere near as familiar with them as I am with my own. And I’ve no doubt whatsoever that both of those luminary authors maintain a deep and abiding hatred for one section or another of their phenomenal works.
That’s encouraging, and to a certain degree, helps keep me writing. By the same token, the realization that every organization, every family (that’s a type of organization as well, isn’t it?) has its flaws, its own common and unique set of problems, should be encouraging to us all. One’s family isn’t necessarily “broken” so much as different. Different than every other one out there, as distinct as a human fingerprint. And those myriad, minor differences are actually what draw families—and other organizations composed of human beings—together into a cohesive whole, providing a sense of group identity and, when necessary, protection from external threats.
With that I’d like to wish all my Korean friends a Happy Chuseok. I sincerely hope you’re able to relax and enjoy the time spent with your wonderful, strange, abnormal, incredible, one-of-a-kind families!
M. G. Haynes