Precision - Vol. 1

I recently stubbed my toe, bumped into a wall and missed properly setting a cup down on a counter all within a few seconds of each other.  While this was shocking initially (I don’t consider myself clumsy), I haven’t forgotten about the incident.  Why has that moment rolled back and forth in my head so much?  Because it has led me down a long path of contemplating the importance of “precision.” 

The more I explore the concept, the more I realize how indispensable it is to our existence.  It is a fundamental phenomenon to the ability for a human, or any creature for that matter, to survive.

Pardon me if this post starts to get esoteric, because I can’t seem to get the full scope of the issue unfurled inside my dome, so I will use this scrolling webpage for the trick.

Precision probably has some strict definition in the dictionary, but honestly, I don’t care about that right now and have resisted the temptation in the past few days to do so.  I want to define it in terms of how exactness of movement is linked to everything humans do.

In playing Black Ops II multiplayer the other night, I came to the realization that the goal of the challenge was merely a battle of precision.  Much like a surgeon skillfully using precise movements to slice into a trusting human, a gamer in such a first-person battle must utilize the precision of strict vision control translated to hand movement prior to the opponent doing the same.  These moments being strung together properly create the desired, and thus competitive, effect. 

When the eye isn't exacting the intimate details of a pixel on the screen, when the ear doesn't associate the surround-sound-provided scurrying of feet with a threat, and when the hand doesn't react immediately to the commands of the brain, the result is a corpse of a character, assuming the opposing player HAS done those things.  And therein lies the frustration.

I know how to do these things.  I know the order of operations.  I understand the connections of these events.  A consummate person is able to increase the ability of all of these faculties over time with practice.  The expression “practice makes perfect” should actually be dignified as “practice makes precision.”  When a person understands all of these requirements, albeit not to the intimacy or detail I have explained, the body is expected to perform it effectively.  When a body does not, the anger that follows is a result of the brain recognizing that the precision of action has failed.  Remember the last time you bit your tongue, lip or cheek while eating casually?  Remember how entirely stupid you felt inside your head?  “How can a process I have done so many times suddenly lead to a bloody bite of a part of my mouth?”  Consider that a loss of precision.

I wondered if aging is merely a slowing down of the body to be precise.  A child learns precision from the day it is born.  The body following the commands of the brain through eye tracking, grasping, rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, running and jumping forms the fundamental element of movement that the human experience will continue to build upon and expand millions of times.  

It is an understood concept that reaction times slow down over the course of your life after peaking somewhere in your 20s.  Yet our understanding of the world, the objects in it, and our own bodies only increases with more and more experience, so the balance (literally) of precision moves inversely proportional.  In other words, our neophyte experience with lightning reactions will end up evolving into a wealth of experience and slowing reaction speed.  A person should understand that observation of objects are stacked in an unsturdy* way and therefore be able to predict the toppling, thus increasing the likelihood of movement toward the collapse long before it happens, rather than inexperience not understanding the stack’s faults, and thus being forced to react to the action of the objects falling with speedy hands.  

Precision is also a product of efficiency.  The precise thinking leads to the greatest amount of efficiency when carrying out an action.  On a simple scale it can be exemplified by a scenario where a person in the kitchen needs to grab their coat from the front closet and realizes that the journey can be more efficient if, along the way, he/she carried the ballcap that has been left laying on the counter to its spot on the shelf above the coats.

This type of precision ultimately equates in a savings of time.  It is constantly on my mind whenever I drive a vehicle: the amount of time between stops, the response of traffic signals at certain intersections, the top speed allowed on that road, the top speed one can reach without being caught on that path, the traffic flow at the given time of day, the prediction of other vehicles’ behaviors, the value judgment of comparing distance covered versus time spent traveling (in itself this is a whole other debate I hope to touch on later this year).  All these interact in my head until I arrive at the decision of what is the precise route to take, what is the precise amount of speed to attain, the precise amount of movement, aggressiveness, and risk to drive with in order to make the efficiency of my driving experience the best that it can be. 

Which brings me back to the claim at the beginning of this post: precision is indispensable to our existence. 

The ability of that stupid brown squirrel in my backyard to avoid a charging wiener dog and beagle relies completely on the precision of dodging the various holes, timing the jumping, climbing the tree quickly and moving from sturdy branch to branch effectively.  A wrong hop, an incorrect evaluation of the distance between branches or an over-estimate of size of branch can land that little rodent in front of my beastly pets.  There would be no guarantees as to the behavior of my dogs if something like that was to occur, but the same would hold true for any creature in the natural world.

Precision in my driving has led me to avoid five accidents in the last week.  Five.  My precision made up for the other person’s lack of precision.  I predicted that the cars would be changing lanes and had the movements already planned in my head if it happened.  Sure enough, several drivers refused to check their blind spots or assumed that no one else on the road was going to shift lanes to the same spot.  Because of the combination of thought, observation and motion I avoided an accident again and again.  The possibility of causalities of that wreck during rush hour traffic are fairly staggering but were not needed to be explored because of the precision of my actions.

Which is why I got so angry when that stupid cup spilled right after I stubbed my toe and hit the wall; I avoided the impact of two tons of steel interacting at 65 mph but couldn’t set a 12 oz. piece of plastic down on a hard surface.  Infuriating. 

And that is what has been on my mind lately.  I am sure to expand on this in the future, but for the time being will let it rest with this.

GP

* Did you know that “unsturdy” is not an actual word, according to multiple dictionaries?  And yet, you know exactly what it means.  Fascinating.