“For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else.” – Sir Winston Churchill, speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, London, November, 9, 1954.
Prescience [pre-sh(ē-)ən(t)s]: the power to see the future.
Butterfly Effect [buht-er-flahy /ɪˈfɛkt/ Pronunciation Key i-fekt]: large output from small input, the supposed influence exerted on a dynamic system by a small change in initial conditions.
July 2007. Alone in the gravel pit, I leaned against the truck and ran my fingers through my matted hair, chunks of dirt and grit falling away. I stretched and yawned. A quiet moment, welcomed after a day of intense activity. The day had been hot and humid like the others past, and the hot July air covered my exposed skin like a heavy blanket. There was no denying it; I loved the heat.
I surveyed my surroundings. The day was growing late, the sun had almost set. The air was still and the trees ringing the gravel pit were motionless. The “whoosh, whoosh” of beating wings indicated a bird of prey swooping nearby. I smiled, placed my arms across my chest, and settled more comfortably against the tailgate. I closed my eyes and sighed.
I thought of what I had accomplished so far. I thought of what I would accomplish. I thought of all the ruffed grouse we had seen this year, and how many times I slowed down for the little chicks as they followed momma bird across the road. I thought of how I had noticed the transition between spring and summer, and how many leaves were on each tree. I thought of how beautiful…how satisfying…how gratifying…all this work was…mmmmmmm…the sweet taste of accomplishment through continuous progress…yes, there was no doubt. I was enjoying this...
I opened my eyes and lifted my right hand to my face. “Yup,” I thought, “I’ll need to put some peroxide on that.” Hamburger knuckles, the bane of the mechanic.
As I leaned against the truck enjoying the peace, I forgot for a brief moment the issues at hand…breakdowns…
I was on day four of a five day work stretch and spending the nights at the cabin. No bath in three days. We worked real 12 hour days (sometimes more), a short break for lunch and dinner, and then back to the cabin after dark.
I’d sent Frank to the cabin to retrieve the 12 volt trouble lamp and the little shop vacuum. It was twilight now and darkness was descending upon me. And with the disappearance of the sun the mosquitoes would return.
We started hauling gravel earlier the same day, practicing loading and hauling. And although I hadn’t loaded the 5 ton very much, maybe two or three yards, here we were, in the kilometer 2 pit, nursing a busted transmission something or other.
We had just returned from dumping the 2nd load and were backing the 5 ton into position to load the 3rd. Then something peculiar happened: as I let the clutch out after putting it into 1st, the truck’s back-up alarm came on and it felt like the vehicle was about to go into reverse. Strange, since I was definitely in a forward gear. I didn’t force the issue, I just put the clutch back in, slipped it into reverse proper, backed up a little, then tried 1st again. It worked, we moved forward. But when I finished reversing the truck into position I tried a forward gear just to see if this was an anomaly: nope, the back-up alarm was activated in the forward gears. All of them. So I parked it then and there.
I decided to pull the shifting forks off the transmission to see what was up. And that’s where we’d left it. Frank was getting more tools so we could work into the night while I remained behind and painstakingly removed the screws and bolts that held the shift and forks in place.
Maybe this wouldn’t have been so bad, except we had been experiencing a rash of breakdowns lately, and their occurrence seemed to be accelerating.
I had counted on the 5 ton for moving gravel, now. We were behind schedule and we needed gravel. We had spent nearly a week excavating at the site and we needed backfill. Not next week, now. And we had only moved about 7 yards when this breakdown occurred.
I had purchased the 5 ton because it had low kilometers and had not seen very heavy service. But machines will be machines…they break down, right?
Or do they?
Leaning against the tailgate, that warm July evening, I was awakened from my reverie by the slight “tick-tick-tick” of expanding metal emanating from the 5 ton. Ah, yes, that’s where I’d left at: what do we do now?
I sighed…conflicting emotions regained a beachhead on my mind as I began thinking about different scenarios and “what ifs”. What if I had to drop the transmission and replace it? That meant more downtime, more cost, more delays. Or maybe I could simply park it and get someone else in here with equipment. My mind churned with alternatives and all were unpalatable. My major dilemma was one of scheduling. If it came down to finding a contractor available to do the work then we could be delayed for weeks. Delay was not an option. Time was already tight, and getting tighter.
I enjoy the challenge of mechanical work, its one of the reasons I became an engineer. But sometimes I’d rather be doing something else. That something else, at that moment, was “constructing”.
All this went through my mind as I leaned against the tailgate. Dirty, greasy, dusty, sun browned, and a little stiff. Just a little.
And then I heard it: the unmistakable drone of mosquitoes.
Oh, they hadn’t reached me yet, for some reason unbeknownst to me. I only heard them. We were parked in the middle of a large dune-like area, a gravel pit. And the ominous sound was a harbinger of things to come: an insect cloud lifting from the surrounding forest, looking for some warm body upon which to descend. I involuntarily braced myself. “Ha! Come on you little bastards!” I was only wearing shorts and shoes, so I considered moving from my comfortable position and getting something to protect myself against the anticipated onslaught. Mosquito swarms like this can drive people and animals insane.
I rubbed my eyes wearily. Its one thing to work in the dark while dropping bolts and losing parts in the shadows, but its quite another thing trying to work in the dark while getting eaten by insects. Ugh, whatever fun was left in this situation appeared to be disappearing, rapidly.
Looking back, writing about it now, it doesn’t seem so severe. But as many of you may relate, when things aren’t going right, there’s a tendency for things to keep going “not right”, including how one feels.
And sometimes things go so “un-right” you feel overwhelmed. And sometimes you reach a very special benchmark: you throw your hands up in symbolic capitulation and say, “Ok, whatever...” From the sidelines it may seem like giving-up. But when you’re in the game, you feel immediate relief. You release all emotional attachment to a negative situation. You’re free.
This, my friend, is one of the many crossroads of your thoughts. But unlike many others, it is clearly marked. And it is a gift.
I turned at the intersection and onto a seemingly delusional pathway which started another train of thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice if the bugs didn’t bother us tonight? What if we worked in peace?”
It sounded ludicrous. And it felt good. I started laughing. And I smiled. By myself, in the pit, covered in dust and grease, I laughed out loud. I uncrossed my arms and shook my head. And I laughed.
And within moments a light hearted sensation flooded over me. Even the sickly transmission seemed a non-issue. In fact, I felt as if I had just solved it moments earlier. Truly, I was feeling the relief that only comes when one discovers a long sought after solution to a major obstacle. And yet the solution had not yet shown itself to me and I had not done any further work on it since taking my break…how could this be?
I want to finish my work tonight, in peace. I want to enjoy this.
Between laughs and smiles I’d forgotten about the mosquitoes.
Then the first “one” showed up.
It was a loud “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzit”, like the sound you’d expect from a small bird whipping by your head. Except it wasn’t a bird.
And it wasn’t a mosquito. Although I could hear the drone of the mosquito collective clearer and louder than scant moments earlier, this was something else.
It was a huge dragonfly.
It swooped around me. Startled, I jumped from my leaning position against the tailgate and ducked. What the…
And then the sky around me exploded with dragonflies.
And they were HUGE.
I’m talking massive. I had never seen dragonflies this big before.
At this point I realized the mosquitoes were upon my location. Their drone was deafening and in the quickly waning light I could barely discern the writhing cloud above and around me. But incredibly, they would not come near me!
I sat on the tailgate transfixed, my mouth wide open in wonder and amazement. True and utter amazement. If anything qualified as spectacular, this certainly did.
The dragonflies were zipping around every which way; it was a feeding frenzy the like I had never witnessed before…with an intensity rivaling a World War I aerial dogfight. I’d been around dragonflies in the past…but this I’d never seen before…a massive mosquito swarm kept completely at bay by a comparatively small number of dragonflies!
I placed my hands on the tailgate and stepped away from the truck, silently cheering on my guardians. I realized I was witnessing something special, something incredible. I was mesmerized.
Not a single mosquito bite.
I stood in awe as the massive dragonflies dived this way and climbed that way. I watched them snatch mosquitoes in midair. Wave after wave of goose bumps surged across my skin as I watched.
Finally one intrepid mosquito made it through the protective net. As if in a trance I put my arm out. The mosquito landed on my forearm but it didn’t bite. It just sat on my outstretched arm. Then a dragonfly swooped in and snatched it right off my arm, right in front of me.
WOW!!!!!
I leaned back again and sat up on the tailgate, basking in the beauty of the moment. Intense…surreal…my eyes glistened with moisture…
I am appreciating.
Finally, after what seemed like a blissful eternity since the air show began, Frank pulled up with the Ford. It was dark now, but the moonlight pierced the slight cloud cover and flooded the work area. I wondered if his presence would disrupt the experience. I stayed where I was, relaxed, and waited for Frank to walk up. All the while the dragonflies kept up their attack.
As they buzzed around us I explained to Frank in a level voice what was happening. He perched beside me and we sat in relative silence enjoying the moment together. How good it felt to share this with someone!
Finally we decided to get to the work at hand. We hooked up the trouble lamp and fired up the portable generator so we could vacuum the transmission housing.
Did this bother the dragonflies?
Not in the least!!
And to show us their level of commitment they even flew into the cab of the 5 ton while we were in there working.
Les Mademoiselles, the dragonflies, protected us until we packed up and left for the night, 40 minutes after they first appeared.
The next morning we inspected the shifting forks. The forks looked fine, no visible breakages. I looked up and down the transmission case and could not find any sign of broken gears. Without a bench vice I was unable to hold the forks and move the shift at the same time. Even then, something didn’t add up. I decided it was time to visit someone who’d been here before. A good mechanic observes and uses the process of elimination to track down a solution, moving from simple to complex. A really good mechanic, however, just lets the solution come to him, one way or another.
We threw the parts into the Toyota and hauled off into town. As we drove in I started thinking of worse case scenarios…but then I had that feeling again, the feeling that everything was all right, the problem was simple, and bizarrely enough, already solved. This feeling was accompanied with a shudder and a release of tension. My logical side acquiesced, “Fine, let’s just see how things turn out.”
The mechanic inspected the forks and didn’t see anything out of place. He looked grim. He explained it was possible the gears had been broken. “It’s probably stuck in reverse, and if you put it into a forward gear, it’s trying to go backwards and forwards at the same time,” he grimaced. “Not good.”
The idea of a new transmission and the associated cost and effort didn’t feel right. And I was certain I had shut down early enough and had not stressed the transmission.
Our hero put the forks in his bench vice and after a few minutes adjusting the vice, was able to move the shift around and view the forks at the same time. As he jammed away on the forks I noticed something during one of the shifts.
“There, right there, Dave. It looks like this fork isn’t pushing forward even though you’re moving the shift back.” I pointed to the offending fork.
Bingo.
One 25 cent shear pin later, we were back in business. Three hours later the 5 ton was whole once more, and gravel was moving again.
Many times I fondly recall my experience with the dragonflies, Les Mademoiselles, that warm summer evening. Invariably, my thoughts lead to questions…
Was I experiencing moments of prescience or was I affecting the outcome of my future? Was I predicting the dragonflies or was I attracting them? Did I predict the simple fix to the transmission or did I create it via the butterfly effect, by making small, seemingly insignificant changes to the now? Did positive attitude play a role, and if it did, at what level?
I thought about this for a while. And in time I realized I believe something apparently paradoxical: “The present creates the future and the future creates the present.”
Dance of the Paradox?
Wayne Pitura, P.Eng.
The Engineer
The Quote Ezine |
