So,
how often do rules mess us up?
I’m
talking about the best rules. The easiest to remember rules. The
rules we almost take for granted.
How
often do rules mess us up?
Right
out of the gate, i before e, is weird. I’m not saying that to
be funny. Weird. The word, weird, doesn’t follow the i before
e rule.
The
rule continues. Except after c. But then there’s glacier. And,
well…
Freight
Ancient
Beige
Weight
Protein
Heir
Deity
Deficiency
We
could go on, but as the saying goes, even Einstein gets it wrong.
(Twice.)
I
think the problem is that in most cases, you’ll find that these
rules were invented to create an easy way of teaching something.
A way to remember it. A way to show others how to apply it. And
when you go one step further, the biggest issue tends to be that
when people don’t understand the rule, it creates all sorts of
issues when attempts are made to bend and break it.
Red
lights.
Most
of us understand red lights. Red means stop. Green means go. (Yellow
means floor it or risk being held up for a minute or more.) But
how does it hold up as a rule?
Depending
on how we apply definitions and interpretations, not well. Stop
and go is the law. The rule is a way of simplifying the law. (For
instance – “If it’s red, stop.” End statement. End debate.) But
red doesn’t just mean stop. It also means someone else may be
coming from a different direction, that person has the right of
way, and if you don’t stop bad things may be the result.
Rules,
exceptions, facts, opinions, beliefs, principles, guidelines and
more. We look to them to establish a way of acting, or more specifically,
of problem-solving. If a, then b, move to step 3. And then we
wind up with flow-charts, to allow us to shift when step 2 doesn’t
neatly slide into step 3.
The
scary thing is that often the flow-chart needs to allow for some
real stupidity. Have you ever read some of the warnings about
using hair dryers and chainsaws? The idea that equipment using
fuel has labels saying not to use a lit flame to check the fuel
level implies that someone (or, plural, someones) at least once
intentionally used a match to check and see how much gas was left.
And if you think that’s funny…
A
friend of mine swears he once received medication for his dog,
from the vet, that had a warning label saying it could cause drowsiness
and not to operate heavy machinery or a vehicle while taking it.
(Try not thinking about that the next time it’s late at night
and you see a Labrador driving a lawn mower in the breakdown lane
with someone passed out in the cart it’s pulling.)
Rules
were made to be broken. Fair enough. But before they are, you
need to understand the reason for the rule, while many times not
forgetting how it may apply to someone else.