Any well-designed software or electronic device, has a reasonable amount of error tolerance. The best example is my Nokia 3315 – which once fell of a 5 foot high window sill. It was ringing and was in vibratory mode – so though I realised it would slide off and ran towards it, it was too late! It opened up and into several pieces! I put back the cell, the back cover – and it switched it on, and it worked like a charm! I once happened to drop my Olympus camera – and even with its long telephoto optical zoom (which makes it very delicate equipment) – after pausing for a few seconds for my panicky feelings to dissipate, I switched it on, and it still worked perfectly after that!
Even with user interfaces – suppose one presses the wrong button in the wrong mode – the device generally dosen’t blow up, it gives a beep or alternatively simply ignores it and does nothing.
The same with software – while designing software, in object oriented programming, we can use structured exception handling. Even with scripting languages, there are a wide variety of error handling mechanisms. So for example, if some file isn’t there, or some registry entry is missing, well designed software pops up/displays on the status bar – an error message to the user with possible corrective action, or tries to find alternatives and get on with it.
But I don’t know why we humans who go to great lengths to design such hi-technology systems, lack such tolerance within ourselves. I can’t recall [very conveniently 😉 ] when I’ve been intolerant myself but off late I’ve been at the recieving end of intolerance. Apart from other reasons its kept me pretty much occupied.
Sometimes words even when said with no ill-will at all, can end up in terrible misunderstanding. Sometimes its my fault, at other times its not but I end up incriminating myself!
I remember one incident from my school days. One time the whole gang was all set to play football in the grounds, but no football was available! Except with one friend named Sharat. Since he was my neighbour, I went to his house along with another guy named Baliga to borrow the football from him. He didn’t want to come himself, but being refused to lend it out to us except if either of his family friends Sudhi or Rohit were with us. Now I wasn’t sure if these chaps were present at the grounds, but Baliga had no hesitation in assuring me that they were there, so I affirmed it and he lent it to us. And we cycled off to 18th cross… I discovered that neither Sudhi nor Rohit were really there and was annoyed with Baliga, but forgot about it and were happily playing. When suddenly Sharat came storming in the middle of the game – it was pretty clear that he was terribly angry and unhappy – he took the ball and went home. Later on after I went home, it turns out that there had been a mild uproar about the whole thing among the families of Sudhi, Rohit and Sharat (all of them my neighbours), since I was accused of having lied just to take the ball. Of course nothing much was said explicitly to me, except Rohit who condescendly remarked “this wasn’t expected of you”. Sharat’s father since then was less friendly to me for quite a while, and there was a definite drop in my credibility in this circle. Not that it bothered me a great deal but I did wish I wasn’t misunderstood.
And people once they form an impression never want to let go of it, they identify with the misunderstanding, it becomes a part of them. Trying to recover a lost friendship due to such a misunderstanding requires determination, patience and perseverance – upto a certain point. Beyond that, it becomes obstinacy and insensitivity, and is best to not cross the line, but accept it and live with it.
Looking back, I think I’d taken it a lot more lightly in my school days than I did now, being a laughably matured man of 30! But in this case, a friend wanted to walk away forever.
With the increase in age, such an incident makes one go through several phases – there is a strong tendency fo the mind to keep on rolling around in self-pity, thinking of all the ‘if-only’s, wondering what I’d said wrong, etc. Though I went around my life as usual, for some days, almost througout the day there was some kind of dull burning ember deep inside my stomach. There were times when I felt as if some life energy within me was just sapping away, like water flowing endlessly down the drain. The terrible illusion that I’ve ‘lost’ something – though I’d never owned it in the first place – was quite overwhelming.
Compared to the stillness of the depths of the ocean, I knew these were just turbulences at the surface, but nevertheless they were turbulences and one has to go through them as long as they last. It took a while.
However I had felt that I must stop writing. There was this sinking feeling that what a ridiculous thing it is for me who knows so little to sit and publicise my inane ideas over the internet. Not really humility, it was more a feeling of a loss of self-confidence… my spirit was pretty low.
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Some butterflies regularly frequent a patch of flowers in the garden in our office. Once in a way after lunch when I walk past that patch, I kneel down and for a short while watch them flit around from flower to flower, its a very nice time. Today was having a coffee break outside with a bunch of colleagues, near this patch of flowers. I told them about the butterflies (there were none at this time, maybe they come exactly at lunch time! 🙂 ). I don’t remember what I was saying, but suddenly remembered something else about butterflies – it was a quote…
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.
~ Richard Bach
Somehow this quote had a lot of relevance to me – it reminded me that one must have error tolerance, not only to others but to oneself as well 🙂
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