A head stand is a bar, and I intend to reach this bar within the next 30 days. Wish me luck – I’m going for it. Some people might say the head stand is an achievement, but it’s not – it is a bar. It measures other achievements.
For many years, I have practiced Yoga. I have become, at times, very good at performing a shoulder stand, and halfway decent at corpse pose. I have always preferred the sitting and lying poses over the standing poses.
Perhaps this is part of the reason I have never committed to surpassing the head stand bar. It is a standing pose (sort of). But even worse, it is the type of pose that proves whether or not your body has been listening to all that Yogic nonsense about:
- Quiet
- Balance
- and Patience
Perhaps for some people this kingly inverted pose comes easily. These are the same people who must have excelled in gymnastics back in grade school. But for me, when I try to stand that way, I feel terrible. I don’t fall, because I don’t bother to hoist my legs high enough that I might fall. I just sort of.. don’t do anything useful or enlightening at all. I squat upside-down, just like Mork used to do.
I fail. Na-nu Na-nu.
Failing Noisily
In one of my favorite books on technology, The Art of Unix Programming, Eric Raymond discusses ways to make a system more robust. He suggests that a software system which makes errors (even minor ones), but which does not make those errors obvious to the World in a big noisy way, is simply bad software. Errors should be shouted loud upon the mountain top, so that the villagers know to lay down their tools and come climb up the mountain.
When you must fail, fail nosily and as soon as possible.
- Rule of Repair, The Art of Unix Programming
For example, imagine that the ATM mistakenly deducts $1000 from your account balance while only giving you $100 in cash. Wouldn’t it be better if the machine started trembling and smoking and screaming obscenities at itself when it makes such an error? Then you would know you have to go fix something. Or, is it better for the error to quietly happen, and possibility go unnoticed until the end of the month when you are balancing your checkbook? (Do you still balance your checkbook?)
Gotta tell you – I would much rather an ATM that screams obscenities (or perhaps one that never makes an error?). Obscenities would be good.
Back to the office: You have an employee who makes a minor mistake by forgetting to follow-up on some questions with the vendor prior to the project plan being submitted to management. Is it better to find out weeks later, after decisions have been made and it is too late to reasonably incorporate whatever information the vendor might have provided? Or better to have the employee come into your office, screaming obscenities at himself for his incompetence, thus enabling you (O, Great Manager) to correct the course of the project NOW!
?? Huh.
I’d prefer the employee to do his noisy failing headstand right there on top of my desk. Now. I want to watch people fail, when it happens. Not so I can laugh or accuse, but so that I can help. Oh, and I don’t really ever use the word “fail”, by the way – I am far too touchy-feely for such a negative-nelly word. 
Fail.FAILFAILFAILFAILFILAFAIL!!bam.
Turning the Pyramid Upside-Down
So there is the noisy failing aspect of the exalted king of all asanas.
Then, there is the kicker:
Being upside-down counteracts the effects of being right-side up.
I once told this to a best friend of mine, and he looked at me the same way he did when he caught me baking granola on the hottest day of the summer. c-c-c-RRR-AAzyyy. Obviously, I assured myself, this man has never had the experience of having been upside-down, and I turned back to the business of heating our New York City apartment to a cozy temperature of 104 degrees.
Well, he had been upside-down – I was wrong. All of my friends had. They had all done their noisy failing head stands out in public view, and had all fallen noisily, from time to time.
So, whether you are a manager or a co-worker, I wish upon you, that your office-mates and cubicle partners might all have the gusto to do head stands at the office. Perhaps a few of them will even stand elegantly quiet and in repose.
Do you do any Yoga at your office? How’s it workin’ out for you?
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