Getting to the Gate

Less bark, more bone

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In Gödel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter offers a short parable he calls “Shandy and the Bone”:

You are a dog, and a human friend has just thrown your favorite bone over a wire fence into another yard. You can see your bone through the fence, just lying there in the grass—how luscious! There is an open gate in the fence about fifty feet away from the bone. What do you do?

Some dogs will just run up to the fence, stand next to it, and bark; others will dash up to the open gate and double back to the lovely bone. Both dogs can be said to be exercising the problem reduction technique; however, they represent the problem in their minds in different ways, and this makes all the difference. The barking dog sees the subproblems as (1) running to the fence, (2) getting through it, and (3) running to the bone—but that second subproblem is a “toughie,” whence the barking. The other dog sees the subproblems as (1) getting to the gate; (2) going through the gate; (3) running to the bone.

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Some dogs first try running directly towards the bone, and when they encounter the fence, something clicks inside their brain...These dogs realize that what on first glance seemed as if it would increase the distance between the initial situation and the desired situation—namely, running away from the bone but towards the open gate—actually would decrease it...They confuse[d] physical distance with problem distance.

When you have some shiny goal in mind, it’s tempting to draw a straight line to that goal from wherever you are now. If you want a partner, you go on lots of dates. If you see an opening for your dream job, you submit an application. If you’re trying to acquire your first million users, you buy ads and hire salespeople.

In fact, those actions often are necessary steps for achieving your goal—but not yet. First, there is some other, “out-of-the-way” prerequisite you need to hit. (In the examples above these might be, respectively: personal reflection; acquiring more work experience; pivoting to a better product.) Sometimes the most “productive” thing you can do in any given moment is just to replace a dead lightbulb or restart your computer—not because these have much direct relation to your long-term hopes and dreams, but because everything you do want to accomplish is downstream of fixing these basics.

The lesson here is simple: If you’re repeatedly failing to reach the bone, try not to keep on yapping. Just look around, locate the gate, and run as fast as you can.