Basically Good Enough

In the eleventh year of training at MAPLE, we were recording a lecture series Forall was giving, using a couple of expensive video cameras on tripods to capture different angles, so the final video will look very professional. Of course, that means setting up the cameras, making sure they’re turned on, and lining up Forall in the frame. The resident responsible for this was struggling with this last point—the camera had to be lowered on the tripod and then tilted upward. Forall was holding out his hands and stating repeatedly that if they were visible in the frame, then the camera was angled too low.

The resident was manipulating the camera, without much success. Eventually, he tried to move on to the next camera. Forall asked him if his efforts had worked; he replied “Basically. You can barely see your hands.” Forall pressed him and he admitted that this was not what he had been told to accomplish. Forall’s reply was memorable. “You know how I knew it wasn’t working? Because he tried the same thing three times and his mind said, ‘This is hard, I’ll give up.’” The whole group gave out a hearty laugh. The resident, somewhat red in the face, went back to the first camera and eventually figured out how to unlock the vertical rotation of the tripod, whereupon it was easy enough to get the angle right.

Of course it was easy to laugh in that moment. It’s harder to apply the lesson to our own minds. For me, it means checking in regularly and finding where I’m telling myself, “Yeah, that’s basically good enough. This is hard. I should give up.”