Mario Bettini: Imaginem in cylindrica superficie rectè formatam in plano horizontali ritè de formare.
[To form an image on a cylindrical surface correctly formed in a horizontal plane.]
(1645 - 1655)

"I continue hunting and pecking …"

I realize that I hold, at best, a severely superficial understanding of anything. I learned enough to convincingly fake it for a time, only to discover later that my knowledge would not prove sufficient. It appears there's always a deeper understanding lurking somewhere. This principle holds doubly true for procedures, which seem to exist in layers. The definable portion might get written down, though rarely very coherently. The rest exists as tacit understanding, or perhaps it is better described as contingent understanding, details that could never hold much meaning until after considerable superficial practice. Until I'm in over my head, depth holds little significance. Then, it suddenly becomes the most important dimension, just when I discover that I have little prior knowledge or understanding of coping with its presence.

The editor replied that I'd added "sections" to the manuscript, which had caused the paragraphs to strangely break, seemingly at random. The editor found some logic explaining the phenomena, some feature of the writer's trade I had been blithely unaware of until then. "Sections," I wondered? I had yet to learn what they were or how to apply them, for they'd apparently inhabited that shadowy portion of the writing profession where I'd never needed to consider them. I certainly didn't know enough to actually invoke one in my own manuscript. Still, so much of the writing process remains gratefully automated that I might well have been employing Sections without realizing it. This was apparently the case.

The editor used MSWord, software I've successfully avoided because it seemed hostile to writers. Oh, it seemed fine if one wanted to wile away hours formatting text or waste precious writing time defining preferences, but writing requires almost nothing the system offers. I've worked hard to remain a primitive user, refusing to learn how to code or do much of anything but inhabit the superficial surface of computing. Before these Barbie and Ken Computers were introduced, I'd seen just what a time-sink computing proficiency could become. Once somebody learns how to code, they inevitably start coding, it seems, and then suddenly, they're fifty years older. The only thing they can remember about their life might be that they'd successfully redefined their printer driver, whatever that might entail. I was interested in productively writing with my machine, so I steered clear of anything labeled "word processor."

I replied to that editor, asking if I needed to do something to make my manuscript acceptable since I had no idea where to start looking to find information about Sections and their uses. I'd created the manuscript by copying the text from ninety individual text documents embedded within my blog software's text editor, the sparest sort of writing system I've found. I create all my writing within this shit simple system. I paste it into an actual manuscript editing system which seems capable of reformatting into dozens of different forms. I suspect this incomprehensible system invisibly embedded the Sections into the submitted document.

I always feel like Spam® In A Can when operating this system because I understand almost nothing about how to employ it. I've learned by painful repetition how to fool the system into producing output that appears to be what I want, but I admit that whatever it produces tends more toward accident than intention. I'm learning (it's teaching me) not to ask too very many penetrating questions because I probably don't want to know the answers. I tip-toe through production, occasionally sending a question to the system's developers, those questions always some variation on, "Where do you suppose you've hidden the control for X?" Their responses almost always surprise me. I'm learning that their system probably evolved from an initially crude design that now features so many dangling bells and whistles that it's almost impossible to see their original intention operating beneath.

It's probably the same story for everything, for we all seem to have evolved far beyond our original intentions. I'm operating on a mid-prior-century chassis almost a quarter of a century into the following one. I might have modern tires, but those rims seem eternal. Despite or because of so much experience, my deep-down knowledge of my underlying operating systems remains gratefully superficial. Were I to be transported back in time, I would not be capable of producing a single one of our modern inventions to the amazement of my forebears. It all might just as well be predicated upon magic or rumor, as much as I understand about any of it. Fortunately, that editor reported back that I should focus on finishing reviewing that contract rather than waste my time trying to comprehend the arcane works of Section editing. I continue hunting and pecking, grateful for the temporary reprieve. There will always be another Phantom lurking underneath.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #iAlogue , #PureSchmaltz