Over boiled okra and systems theory

    I am the oldest of six children; five boys and one sister (the youngest).  Our home life was simple – we lived in the country and had a very large back yard (30 acres).  It was simple because when any complexity arose, Dad made a decision or rule and enforced it consistently.  What does this have to do with okra?  Let me share a few rules and circumstances:

1) When there is an altercation between siblings, the older one is at fault.

2)   All family members will be present at super and no one will leave until everyone has eaten everything on his or her plate.

3)   We had a very big garden; 20 or more tomato plants, okra, corn, greens, green beans, etc.

4)   We had cows and horses.

5)   Okra can be picked every day most of the summer and it freezes well.  Almost all of our food came from the garden or pasture.

6)   Properly boiling okra requires careful attention to the amount of time it is cooked; not easily done with 4 other dishes and 6 children.

7)   After everyone was done eating, Dad would read the bible for 30 minutes while all listened quietly.  (We went through the whole thing twice over the years if I remember correctly).

8)   Everyone has to eat a portion of every dish; if the portion chosen was too big or too small, Dad would fix it.

What we have here is a functioning system; younger siblings learned to enjoy the privilege of hitting or otherwise abusing older siblings.  Blame was always predictable and if the older retaliated, punishment was painful.  I spent a few years being unhappy with this system; I was the oldest.  I complained and got in trouble for complaining.

From early childhood through the third grade, I was largely angry with the world, lonely, and withdrawn.  I learned to cope by reading books and exploring math.  Most of the books in the house were college level textbooks and an encyclopedia so early on I could actually read, I scanned for repeated words.  Then I learned to look words up in the dictionary.  Around the second grade, magic happened.  My mom showed me some (very) basic algebra – it was like a whole new world opened up to me.  I spent untold hours manipulating formulas; it was a great deal for my mom because she could show me something for 10 minutes and I would spend sometimes days trying to understand it.  The idea that a letter could represent any number was exciting.  The inability to be able to divide by zero was a problem I tried to solve for months.  (Momma told me it was a great unsolved problem in math and maybe I could figure it out.)

At the end of the third grade, we moved to Indiana and I entered fourth grade.  I got the worst teacher in the state.  She was a very big angry forty something woman in the middle of menopause who would fly off into a verbally abusive rage with the slightest student wrongdoing.  I was withdrawn, had no friends, timid, and had no idea about the differences in rules between an Indiana school and my previous Alabama one.  It was an unpleasant experience till the big discovery.

One afternoon at school, somehow I noticed something very significant.  Right before Ms Henke would fly off the deep end, a certain expression happened on her face where her forehead wrinkled, eyes squinted slightly and jaw tightened.  I made a theory.  I walked to the window and looked outside the classroom.  She noticed.  I kept looking out the window.  Boom – the look started forming, so I returned to my desk before she erupted.  Yes!  This was my first big success moment in systems theory.

Suddenly I was empowered to be able to tell what the rules were for the day by watching her face.  Latter I realized that when she’s about to go off on someone, the squinted eyes create a tunnel vision – a 30 second window of time where I could break any rule I wanted to (as long as there was no noise involved); sauce for the goose!

In the days or weeks following, I noticed something very significant at home.  All of my siblings (including me) hated slimy over boiled okra.  Everyone was required to eat two bites.  One afternoon I was taking a nap on the couch after school and one of the younger brothers took his (metal) Tonka truck and whacked me with it.  I was upset, frustrated, and mad; Daddy expected me to take this abuse and ignore it because I was older.  It wasn’t fair.  At supper, over boiled okra was on the table and it was another magical moment for me. Towards the end of the meal, when everyone else was almost done eating, I loaded my plate half full of the slimy stuff.  Then I proceeded to eat it slowly and pretend to enjoy it like a piece of cake.  Everyone at the table suffered; the younger siblings complained and were disciplined for complaining.

Suddenly I came to the realization that as distasteful and gross as it was, this okra was the solution to my problem.  Overnight I was empowered by being able to make everyone at the table suffer!  It was my second big moment in systems theory; the younger brothers were more than happy come to my aid when one of their elders was bothering me.  The words “I’m going to pick some okra so we can have a big bowl tonight.” brought all my brothers and sister to the negotiating table.  It was awesome.

Epilogue

Little did I know as a child and teenager, my father was teaching us about life in the real world.  In most systems of life, there is “THE MAN”.  You can complain about it, and make no progress.  You can run, and make no progress.  OR, you can search for a tool that (perhaps indirectly) makes “THE MAN” work to accomplish what you wanted in the first place.  It usually takes years to figure it out though.

QED