What to Do When You’re Stuck

Posted on January 10, 2006 by Dave Pollard

I‘ve quoted this before, from TH White’s Once and Future King, when Merlyn is trying to help young Arthur (Wart) cope with sadness and frustration:

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then–to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn–pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics–why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until is it is time to learn to plough.”

My New Year’s resolution for this year (last year it was to do one thing on my GTD ‘important’ list every day, instead of just urgent tasks) is to learn to do something useful every day. It is not enough to just learn something new, I think, or even just to learn something new that is interesting. I think it must be something useful. When you’re stuck, it is easy to be overwhelmed by learned helplessness, and nothing entrenches learned helplessness like depending on other people to do everything for you, from taking away your garbage to repairing (or more often these days, throwing out) something that is broken.

The political elite wants you to feel helpless — dependence keeps you in your place. The corporatist elite wants you to feel helpless — removal of your garbage and repair or replacement of shoddy broken goods all ‘count’ in the computation of GDP, which they would have us believe is the index of prosperity. Composting and repairing your own stuff, and (beyond the cost of materials) making your own stuff, does not count in GDP. It is considered ‘nonproductive’ because no money changes hands. To oppressors, independence of their subjects is anathema.

It is also important, I think, to learn to do useful things before you have to. Just before Christmas, the connector on my piece-of-crap Dell computer’s power cord came loose again. I had promised myself I would take a course in small appliance repair, but I never did it, and now it was too late. It took Dell three weeks to courier another replacement cord to me, during which time my laptop computer became a desktop computer, with the power cord carefully taped in the one position that conducted current. How helpless, how humiliating. And, given that it had happened before, and has happened to most of the Dell owners I know, how foreseeable. But this learning was too late.

Last week (knowing the answer in advance) I called them again and said I wanted the defective part repaired instead of just thrown out, and asked where to send it for that to be done. The three people I spoke to at Dell all cheerfully told me where to stick it. No one in the world fixes these things, they told me, just throw it in the landfill like everyone else. We depend helplessly on the Chinese sweatshop that makes them, just like you.

Likewise, I learned how to repair and replace the blade on my riding mower (the manual was translated from some Asian language and was undecipherable to those without an engineering degree). A neighbour and a relative (both of whom learned by trial and error, and only when they had to) showed me how to do it. There’s no satisfaction from learning that late, that urgently; there’s only a reduction in the feelings of dread. But at least next time I will know.

As Merlyn says, learning to do something isn’t just for feelings of learned helplessness. It’s also good for feelings of being stuck, of not getting anywhere, of not knowing what to do in some other, more pervasive part of your life. Unhappy with your career and not sure what to do about it? Learn how to plant saplings so that they have the maximum chance of survival, and find out where to buy saplings for next to nothing and when the next local tree planting event is, and then show ’em what you know. Relationship with a significant other or dear friend on the rocks? Take up yoga or vegetarianism or glassblowing and improve your posture, your health, and your whole outlook on life. Will that solve these intractable personal problems? No, but it will help you deal with them better, will make you feel less helpless about dealing with problems in your life generally, and more self-confident, more positive, more capable.

Today I am learning how to make fruit smoothies.

Image: The glasswork of Dale Chihuly. Art imitating nature in nature (here at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens, Coral Gables FL). He also has some neon/argon lights that look just like tumbleweeds. Thanks to Brad Mills for the link.

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8 Responses to What to Do When You’re Stuck

darcy says:

January 10, 2006 at 15:35

I love the spirit of this post, Dave, but for some odd reason it makes me think of a little piece of legislation passed by the US congress the other day: it is now illegal to annoy people annonymously via the internet. Which of course, begs the question, what is the legal definition of an “annoyance?” So, the next question is “what is the definition of useful?” :-)I am one of those people who is generally too impatient to wait for other people to fix things (and I hate shopping!) so if I think I can fix something, I am usually inclined to try. Being broke and dependent upon a car for basic survival (loved that old Datsun’s for Dummies book!) at one time was a great learning curve for me: I learned a lot about taking the plunge — sometimes it is worth breaking something altogether for the lessons learned.Speaking of Canada, when I lived in Shelburne, NS, Cuban ships would dock for all sorts of odd reasons. The local United Church of Canada pastor (priestess?) organized the townsfolk to bring down their broken stuff and give it to the sailors to take home. Cuba, because of the US blockade etc, was short of spare parts and “new stuff” as well so they were incredibly happy to take any and all worn-out, broken-down mechanical items which were taken back to Cuba and fixed up or transformed into spare parts. And the local landfills were so much the poorer! Enough rambling!
feithy says:

January 10, 2006 at 15:55

This is a great idea. I should make up a list of things to learn – like how to replace a washer in an old fashioned faucet instead of turning the water main off every two seconds so it doesn’t drip me into bankruptcy. ;)Feithy
Dale Asberry says:

January 10, 2006 at 17:44

>>As Merlyn says, learning to do something isn’t just for feelings of learned helplessness. It’s also good for feelings of being stuck, of not getting anywhere, of not knowing what to do in some other, more pervasive part of your life. Unhappy with your career and not sure what to do about it? Learn how to plant saplings so that they have the maximum chance of survival, and find out where to buy saplings for next to nothing and when the next local tree planting event is, and then show ’em what you know. Relationship with a significant other or dear friend on the rocks? Take up yoga or vegetarianism or glassblowing and improve your posture, your health, and your whole outlook on life. Will that solve these intractable personal problems? No, but it will help you deal with them better, will make you feel less helpless about dealing with problems in your life generally, and more self-confident, more positive, more capable.<<This is something that I’ve devoted myself to — and I’ve named it “Setting myself up to succeed”. It’s a kind of take from a common thing my Mom would say about her counseling clients – they set themselves up to fail.
frida says:

January 10, 2006 at 18:33

I taught myself to make smoothies last year. Maybe this year I’ll learn to cook. I love your web site.
Dave Pollard says:

January 10, 2006 at 20:17

Darcy: Don’t know if you heard but the naval yard in NS is about to be surrounded by a huge floating fence. Apparently the tourists sailing close to US naval ships make the Americans nervous!Feith: That goes on my list, too. Thanks for the reminder.Dale: It’s funny how some people find failure strangely comforting, as if it removes the responsibility for even trying.Frida: The smoothie test worked wonderfully. Much better than the commercial concoctions, and no sugar and no dairy — a righteous pleasure. I used an apple, a tangerine, a dozen grapes, some orange juice and some raspberry juice, with ice, and the result was wonderful: my flavour-buds were dancing. But if I learn to cook I’ll have to start with Mexican or Indian dishes, and take it one dish at a time.
Ginger says:

January 10, 2006 at 20:18

Thank you for your (and TH White’s) words of wisdom and your timing in posting them; they came just when I needed to hear them, as I sat here “stuck” and frustrated, near tears.
Bruce Winter says:

January 11, 2006 at 12:58

Dave, your readers may find some useful learning leads here.http://www.web2learning.net/archives/135
lugon says:

January 12, 2006 at 08:06

There was this http://www.dopedia.org idea … Good for those of us who daydreamed, age 10, about one day finding The Book with exactly that content.