Book Review-Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better By David Epstein

I am an unreserved fan of David Epstein’s writing. He manages to write about complex concepts and explain experimental and theoretical results through his adept use of anecdotes, analogies, and drawing parallels. He does so without overextending the metaphors and straining the constraints of his arguments, as it were.

Since I had read his previous books enthusiastically, I greeted the news that he was working on this book on one of his messages in his Substack with great excitement. He is a non-fiction writer that I will unreservedly read regardless of the subject, although this subject is one that I have been thinking about throughout my engineering life.

This book is a delight; even better, Epstein left it open ended as he is going to continue the conversation about constraints through his Substack newsletters. It is extremely exciting.

As an engineer, I have had to deal with constraints in my work all my career. Even though I am well aware of the necessity of having constraints, as Epstein reiterated, in my idealistic perspective of problem solving, my default reaction has always been to opt for situations where I can negotiate minimal constraints. Engineers get extremely excited about white sheet design — meaning that the design is to be done from scratch — even though white sheet designs never happen. The first thing that happens is that the design team lays out the constraints: physical, mathematical, manufacturability, cost, the list goes on and on. We always think in terms of free form thinking because we are seduced by the freedom promised by open design. Unconstrained thinking promises thinking that is unimpeded by the detritus of reality; the irony is of course, that we are supposed to be engineering in reality and not in a fantasy world. The first chapter is the story that is a serious reminder of how unfettered thinking can demolish creativity through having to deal with too many degrees of freedom, so much so that nothing gets done. I have experienced that firsthand. Beware of giving the creatives too much rope, they will inevitably hang themselves with it.

As a counter to the first chapter, the second chapter discusses how a constrained environment — perhaps an over constrained environment — forced those creatives to be creative. The third chapter tells the story tells how humans, given the freedom to roam, will inevitably take the short cut because the constraint isn’t there, and end up chasing ghosts.

David Epstein always manages to find historical anecdotes to illustrate his points. He managed to find some of my favorite stories. In particular, the story behind Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert, how it came about, the kind of constraints that he had to face — constraints that are seemingly impossible to overcome, and the brilliance of the solution. In the same chapter, the story of how J. S. Bach severely constrained his composing that he was able to create some of the most creative and original music in history. There are stories that I was not aware of that amply demonstrated the point: constraints are not just beneficial but are essential toward creating original solutions by necessarily creating obstacles in order to force the creative mind to be creative.

One of the seductive mindsets that many of us naturally fall under is of originality. Who would turn down the opportunity to be original? David Epstein convincingly argues that originality may not be so original after all, that humans have a proclivity to default to the procedural and known when there are no constraints because there is nothing there for us to push against. This is an essential point that usually needs to be iterated repeatedly during any problem-solving effort. Ironically, constraints are what sparks actual originality.

During my early years in the working world, I was made aware of the book by Eliyahu Goldratt titled The Goal. Indeed, I could probably dig up my own well thumb copy from my boxes of books in the basement. Goldratt called the idea behind the book: the Theory of Constraints. I will leave the explication of Goldratt to Epstein and this book, but it was a delight to find that the ideas that had fascinated me early in my working life had been cited in this new book.

Chapter 9 is probably the most personal chapter. It seems as if it was a very personal chapter for Epstein, it certainly was for me because it clarified some of the lessons I had learned from Oliver Burkeman’s book 4,000 Weeks. I believe that I read that book because Epstein had lauded it, and he was prescient. This chapter is personal because it forced me to face my own work habits, and how ineffective my habits have been in trying to accomplish what I wished to accomplish. Be forewarned that the crux of the discussion is NOT how to be more efficient with our time, but how to be effective with our habits as we apply ourselves in doing what we wish to do. Even as I had subconsciously changed my own habits prior to reading this chapter, reading the chapter now clarifies my personal goals.

One of the more effective tools that Epstein used in this, and all of his books, is that he introduces initial examples, as he did in Chapters 1 and 2, as well as many other stories; he then deliberately and repeatedly return to those stories as landmarks, reminding the readers and reiterating the essential lessons that those stories demonstrate.

The book is categorized by four distinct parts, each part serves a purpose, and Epstein devotes three chapters to each part. The most hopeful and useful part is Part IV: Collaboration and Contentment. Epstein uses this last part to drive home the crux of his point and to inspire the reader to sum up all the lessons that he had presented in the previous chapters and tie them up into a coherent whole. I would not say he tied it up in a neat red bow, the topic is too complex to do so, but it is close enough.

Even though I admire the book and I enjoyed Epstein’s story telling ability,  there were a couple of points that he made which I felt was either too simplistic or came to a conclusion that I did not. Which means that I will need to dig deeper into the granularity of the argument, which is what a good book is supposed to do.

 

Book Review-Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance By Robert M. Pirsig

 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM) is a life defining book for many of us of a certain age who grew to maturity in a certain era. I remember people in  my undergraduate days who carried the book around as a badge of honor, a way of declaring their “coolness.” It is claimed that ZMM is the best-selling philosophy book in history, I don’t know about that, but I do know that it seems everyone I know has at least heard of it. It is so popular that it merited a guidebook associated, with in depth background analysis and a collection of critical reviews of the book. I held off on reading this book until I had a chance to revive my own memory of the book this time. (PhD, 1990)

I was too busy treading water in my studies that I missed out on reading the book. It wasn’t until is entered gradual school and had some down time available that I picked up ZMM, partially out of a duty to read all the books I am supposed to read — I outgrew out of that phase many years and books ago, partially out of my curiosity about the incongruency of the title, and partially out of a need to fill my mind with something non-technical as I was pursuing a technically challenging degree.

I hunkered down in my cheap $100 a month room and read ZMM, much the same as I had read Rene Descarte’s Meditations as a freshman in my Philosophy 107 class.

ZMM made such an impact on my perspective on society, culture, and philosophy that I had reread the book many times in the intervening years. I forget which reread this is, but it is time for me to set down on paper some of my thoughts on this tome after the latest re-read. I am a firm believer that while a book is the author’s way to communicate a message to the reader, the reader can interpret in multiple ways and with multiple perspectives. This venture back into ZMM is a way for me to gain another perspective — hopefully a more mature and more knowledgeable perspective.

ZMM comes at the reader from multiple levels: a psychological examination of a father and son relationship, a travelogue centered on the motorcycle sojourn through the western United States, an examination of Western and Eastern philosophy, a mini tutorial of motorcycle maintenance, a disciplined exploration of the aforementioned Western and Eastern philosophy as filtered through Pirsig, or as Pirsig calls it, a Chautauqua.

The Chautauqua, as defined in Wikipedia is:

Chautauqua is an adult education and social movement in the United States that peaked in popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural United States until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, showmen, preachers, and specialists of the day.

Pirsig intended the use of the term to mean — for his purposes — an assemblage of various and variable topics that are to be investigated. The order of presentation is varied as it suited Pirsig’s purposes. This is where reading ZMM can be somewhat trying as some readers are seeking to gain traction into the story, or the philosophical inquiries, or the travelogue. I found the variations more attractive with my present mind space because of various reasons. The first reason is that I welcomed the pause in the narrative so that I can rest and ruminate on the meanings that Pirsig is presenting; the travelogue gave me a chance to reframe and add some structure to what I had read regarding the philosophy. Another reason that I found the changes in narrative is because my mind had adapted to the modern means of communication and my attention span had shortened in the last few years, a shame to be sure.

The first few times I read the book, I was not up to speed on the Greek philosophers and their ideas, which is probably why is was so difficult for me to follow, I have since become more acclimated to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, which allowed me to gain a much deeper understanding of what Pirsig had intended; this goes also for my understanding of the Eastern philosophies that Pirsig alludes to. I don’t remember the extensive discussions of the European idealists from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, but this was a bonus for me as I had been reading their philosophies recently. This means that the philosophical framework for Pirsig’s main thesis is coalescing nicely, I can better understand why it took a quick but clear detour to European philosophy. It is all to buttress his argument.

The question is: what argument? What is he discussing? The center of ZMM is about the concept of Quality. He steadfastly and deliberately refuses to define the term, partly because this is the center of his concept: Quality, Goodness, arête. I had accepted this premise when I read ZMM the first few times but this time I had built enough of my own understanding of the concepts that he had relied on to truly appreciate and implement the concept, I had managed to broaden my perception and deepened my ability to analyze, which made the experience of rereading ZMM more impactful.

In the meantime, the other parts of the Chautauqua had remined with me, the story of Pirsig’s relationship with Chris, his son, was recalled readily because I had retained the story in my long-term memory. The details of their interaction with the other characters had faded in my memory, so that part of the Chautauqua brought nuance to the travel narrative and helped explain a few things.

I am trying very hard not to reveal the center of ZMM — the reason for reading the book — because I think this is a story that needs to be read, dissected, analyzed, and ruminated upon by all thinking humans. There is reason behind Pirsig’s style of storytelling, the reason he treats it like a Chautauqua at first seems to be overly complicating the story, but in the end, this time around, I grew to appreciate the intent and structure. It opened the door in my mind about many things. Even though I have finished the written book, the thoughts that the story elicited within me reminded me of the times that I had read the same book in my past. The gift that ZMM gave me is that it allowed me to re-examine previous impressions and perspective and compare it with my new, more up-to-date impressions and perspective. In some ways, this rereading allows me to assess how my world view had changed. The comparison is the important aspect, it gives me a tangible sign of how I had changed philosophically.

I had to restart ZMM many times the first time I tackled it. The unconventional structure of the book threw me off and I could not gain traction. It was on the third or fourth try that I fell under its spell.

I hope this review encourages other readers to persevere and continue to attack this most complex book and that they gain traction as well. Ultimately, I hope they fall in love with ZMM as I have over the decades.

References
DiSanto PhD, R. L., & Steele S.J., Ph.D., T. J. (1990). Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. NYC: William Morrow and Company.