More Wisdom from Cliff Stoll
As often happens, I write on a particular topic and then find something else to add a few days or weeks later. Well, it happened again with Cliff Stoll. I had seen his TED Talk, but I had forgotten a few critical statements he made near the beginning. This is what he said:
The first time you do something, it’s science. The second time, it’s engineering. A third time, it’s just being a technician.
Cliff was explaining why he wasn’t going to talk about things that happened in the distant past. He took this position despite the fact most people probably showed up to hear him talk about his days running down KGB computer hackers. But, as the story goes, he had been there and done that. After all, he is a scientist. The curious (and scientists are the most curious of all) are always in the market for the novel.
I decided to write about those short statements mainly because I ran into Buford Lister the other day. I was at The Red Cat Café thinking about what Cliff had said. I knew I needed to write something about it, but I didn’t quite know what. That is when the following happened…
I should have known better, but I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. Of course, he would be there; where else would he be on a Tuesday morning. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I looked up and saw him approach my table, his crooked smile more of a snarl.
“Mind if I sit down?”
I let out a big sigh. “Whatever you please, just don’t start your usual ranting. I have told you hundreds of times before that I can’t help you.”
“All right, all right. I just wanted to see what you are up to. You appeared to be deep in thought, and I suspect it had something to do with me.”
“Typical. You are not the central focus of my existence. I don’t spend all my time thinking about your life’s arc.”
“Sure you do, most of it anyway.”
I took out my notebook and showed Buford Lister the short quote from Cliff Stoll’s TED Talk. He almost started to smile as he read it.
“Yeah, that’s a nice insight. Unfortunately, your friend there didn’t go far enough.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What he didn’t say, and what I am positive that he knows, is that when you do something more than three times, when you do it over and over until you get old and tired…”
“Ugh… I know exactly what you are going to say.”
“Of course, you do. How do you think I know it?”
“It wasn’t the appropriate time or place for him to say what you are thinking. He is a nice fellow; he wouldn’t want to insult the audience or make them feel bad in any way. His talk was meant to be uplifting, not some sort of nihilistic Buford-Lister-inspired fiasco.”
“The fact remains, more than three times, and you are nothing more than a trained monkey, a mindless drone living out its days at the carpet store.”
“Not everyone has your mindset, you know.”
“Well, that is a mighty good thing, don’t you think?”
“Of course, it is.”
I sat back and watched Buford Lister hand the server his personal celebration size stein. She gave him a half-smile as she glanced at the clock. I could tell she wanted to say that he should at least wait until noon. I was glad she bit her lip. It was just as likely that Buford Lister was in the middle of a three-day bender, and I didn’t want to hear about it.
We sat in silence for a while. I took a long hard look at him; he wasn’t aging particularly well. I wasn’t going to tell him, but he had the look of a man who had been doing the work of a mindless drone for decades. The bright eyes of a child prodigy (and he certainly was a mathematical Mozart) had faded into those of a beaten-down monkey. Sure, he had become perhaps the world’s most accomplished poker player, but it was all mindless repetition. He hadn’t experienced anything new or gained any real insight in decades. And he knew that playing poker was the worst profession in the world, the greatest possible waste of a person’s time and talent, and that is precisely why he chose to play. It wasn’t possible to make the world a better place by sitting at a poker table, which conveniently made it impossible to fail at a former child prodigy’s life purpose.
Buford Lister gave the server a thumbs up as she sat the giant stein down on the table. He made sure not to make eye contact with me until he finished his beer. It didn’t take long. Of course, he immediately ordered another.
Was he trying to make me feel sorry for him? There was a vacant look in his eyes, one of a man defeated by decades of the universe’s uncaring stance. Still, though, there was a glimmer of humanity (slight as it might be). If you look closely, you can usually tell if someone has given up. I was reasonably sure he hadn’t, even though I couldn’t quite figure out why.
Between you and me, his life has been an abject lesson in grotesque spirit-crushing. He knew his luck hadn’t been the best and that he had done a few things worthy of regret. He also learned at an early age that the universe was indifferent to his plight. As I watched him chug his beer, I found myself hoping that it would never dawn on him that he had wasted his life. I hope that he somehow forgets that he was born with the ability to take the genius of Mozart and translate it into inexplicable mathematical insight. My wish is that the alcohol dims the pain enough for him to get through the day. After all, that is the best I can do for him.
