I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s “Work Should Feel Wrong” entry, one of a series on my personal principles, that today’s principle is the hardest of the bunch to describe.
Roll the clock back to my college years (hey, it's not that far...) and visit one of my Calculus study sessions with Brian. For whatever reason, Brian always went to class and needed help with the homework, and I never went to class and helped him with his homework. Be that as it may, it was during one of these sessions that we discovered this principle - more of an axiom - about the number zero and it's strange properties.
Because I'm lazy, I enlisted Brian's help via instant messenger this afternoon to reflect on the nature of the zero rule. He describes it thus:
Anything that so routinely invokes exceptions, special rules, or straight up melt downs in logical and procedural systems, despite a cool and easy going veneer on commonality, must have a sinister and malicious plan.
Here's his example. If you multiply 3 × 50 you get 150. And you can easily reverse that, where 150 ÷ 3 equals 50. But try that with 0, and it's a whole different scenario. You can't get back to where you started, and you've got nothing but an exception to an otherwise very nice, orderly set of rules.
The problem with zero is that it's such an innocuous looking thing that completely changes the game.
Interestingly, this rule seems to rear its head most often when there is zero of something, or something conspicuously missing that seems like it should be present. I am completely without examples of this, because it's one of those things that you only recognize when you realize you're in the midst of it, and you must react immediately or face the consequences of irrecoverable zero-based doom.
As with the Tetris Principle, you can really only grasp this if you're living it. I can't completely teach it to you.
And with a whimper, so ends my personal principle series. I hope you enjoyed these last six posts. I wish that people would look through these and think what seemingly mundane "rules" they follow and submit a few of their own in the comments, or in a post on their own blogs. It would be fun to trade them and exchange related stories.
I'll now return you to your regularly scheduled blog drivel.
