When Less is More

I just got back from a long two-week trip helping a daughter and son-in-law move from Provo, Utah to Atlanta, Georgia. It was a great trip, but with some long hours on the road. I mostly drove the moving truck, so the mph rarely broke 65. There was only a radio in the truck, so no books on tape to help pass the time. That gave me plenty of time to think, but little time to write. I have two books that I think about every day that are partially written and screaming for my attention. They seem to take turns at being the loudest. Meanwhile, quietly lurking in a dark corner, never screaming for my attention, but with an confident and sinister muahahaha, my dissertation reminds me of my responsibility, not necessarily my desire. Of course I want to complete my PhD in International Business, and I have promised my wife Vicky to take her to Paris with me to defend my dissertation when that time finally comes. The planned date is mid November. My son leaves for Mexico for a two-year mission in early November and we want to be home for Thanksgiving at the end of the month, so that leaves little flexibility.

I originally drew up a plan where I could work on a book (the one closest to completion got the nod) and still work on my dissertation. What I have discovered is, I can’t write a quality academic paper of this magnitude (somewhere around 350 pages) and the Great American Novel simultaneously. I suppose some of you great writers are mentally ambidextrous and can switch from precise academic style to rich and dynamic novelistic style (or so I like to think at least). On my long drive I finally decided that the quickest way to a quality completion of any of these projects was to focus on one and work in series instead of parallel.

I seem to remember from my one and only electrical engineering class (1976 in think) that the resistance (my challenges) through a series circuit is higher than through a parallel circuit (assuming the same resistors). Thus for the same amount of volts (energy) you get more amps (work) through a parallel circuit. Hmmm... That doesn’t seem to work for my present metaphor. Then I realized, (you can tell I had a lot of time to think on the drive) that for resistors in series, the current (amps) is the same for each resistor, and for resistors in parallel, the voltage is the same for each one. In other words, I could exchange the same energy working on multiple projects simultaneously, but the work would go down—that is the output, the quality would diminish. It will possibly be less efficient to complete one project and go on to the next, but the quality is what I am looking for, not efficient volume.

That got me thinking about the present generation of youth who do everything in parallel. I was waiting at a restaurant in Atlanta with my family and a young married couple came in and waited near us for a table. Both pulled out their i-phones and began doing multiple things while also holding something I assume they thought was a conversation. It was punctuated by a lot of single syllable sounds and I am not sure, if given a test whether either would really know what the other had said—perhaps they wouldn’t even had passed a test on they themselves had said. I love parallel operations, but give me quality anytime. When it comes to communications, I think less can actually be more and more can be less.