The Tao of CTRL+ALT+DELETE
IN THE BEGINNING (of the 1500's)
Leonardo da Vinci designed the mechanical calculator.
He looked at what he drew, and saw it was good.
Though to the best of our knowledge, he never built it.
The concept of the mechanical calculator lived on in theory, only.
Until in 1642, Blaise Pascal created the first finished mechanical calculator.
The mechanical calculator begat the stepped reckoner.
The stepped reckoner begat the analytical engine.
The analytical engine begat the Arithmometer.
The Arithmometer begat the Comptometer.
The Comptometer begat the tabulating machine.
And so on for over 400 years since Leonardo drew his designs on his trestle board.
The 19th century saw the telegraph invented for long distance communication.
The telegraph from the 19th century begat the teleprinter in the 20th century.
The dawn of 20th century saw the birth of the diode, triode, and transistor.
These then gave birth to the Computing Age which begat the Information Age which begat the Digital Age (which will likely beget the great take-over of humanity by artificial intelligence, but that's beside the point).
The first computers of the 20th century were titans. Among the titans were:
Colossus
ENIAC
EDVAC
UNIVAC I
UNIVAC II
The problem with these titans, however, was that they were massive in size, slow in speed, clunky to operate, and prone to "bugs."
Sorry, that shouldn't be in quotes.
Bugs.
Yes, actual bugs.
Moths and other insects.
Actually inside the machines.
That's where we get the term!
Eventually, the vacuum tubes that powered the titans gave way to integrated circuitry. Integrated circuitry gave way to microelectronics, mainframes, and the personal computer.
As computing technology became more prevalent in the workplace, it was not without fault.
It's not known when the first priest of technical support uttered the phrase "Did you try turning it off and on again?", but there's a pretty good chance it was in the 1950's.
Industrial computing became a booming business, but the Profits knew that the real money would be putting a computer in every household. IBM seized the nascent personal computing market space, and cornered the market on hardware and software. During the early 1980s, a great IBM wizard named David Bradley decided he needed a better way to reboot a computer when his code got out of control, but not something that could be done accidentally. Thus, the fabled keyboard command <CTRL>+<ALT>+<DEL> was born.
The great wizard Bradley looked at what he created for himself, and saw it was good, and he smiled upon his keyboard.
That night there was likely at least one star in the sky... somewhere.
The great and powerful IBM was pleased with all they had created. Their Profits sat up on high, but alas, they had forgotten about the people. Remembering their covenant, "one PC in every home", the great nerd kings of the western United States, from California to Washington took to the caves of their dwellings and started companies like Apple and Microsoft.
The Great King Jobs, the Wizard of Woz, and Sir Ronald Wayne, founded the Kingdom of Apple in the land of Cupertino, California. Apple made computers and software for use by all the people, everywhere.
Around the same time King William Gates III and his closest friend, Lord Paul Allen, founded the kingdom of Microsoft in the land of Redmond, Washington. Microsoft made no hardware, and their software was primitive and utilitarian. That is until King Bill of Redmond was tempted, and took a bite of the Apple. From this act, King Bill of Redmond brought Windows to the people.
Windows was venerated by the people in the offices and at home, at work and at play.
Wise in the ways of the Tao of <CTRL>+<ALT>+<DEL>, King Bill the Great (as he became known colloquially) incorporated the "three finger salute" in his Windows operating system.
From this point forth, the priests of technical support forsook the "off again, on again" line of inquisition, and instead adopted the credo, "When in doubt, reboot."
There is wisdom in this credo.
With a reboot comes a rebirth.
So how do we apply this to healing from depression?
Well, what if depression is the weight of the gap we feel between our existence and our purpose?
Our existence = how we operate on a daily basis.
Our purpose = what we're meant to do to make the world a better place.
The further our existence get from our purpose, the more alone and useless we feel.
This is similar to a computer getting a memory leak caused by programs still running that should be shut down, thus dragging our existence to a standstill like a non-responsive computer; slowly draining our resources until we just stop responding; our work (our purpose) lost to us.
What do we do in this moment? When in doubt, reboot.
We must relinquish control. So we take a deep breath, and with a short prayer that typically sounds like, "G-d, please let my work be there when it comes back on," we use two fingers on our left hand to hold down <CTRL> and <ALT>, and with our right hand press <Delete>.
Then we wait.
Then we press it again because nothing happened.
Then we wait.
Then we press it a third, fourth, and fifth time until we finally get the help for which we pleaded and prayed.
As we start to awaken, it's important to come back in "safe mode" so we don't haphazardly recreate the same conditions that caused our existential leak.
This is the time to objectively look back on what went wrong, and find the bugs in our code so we can fix it and prevent the resource drain from happening again in the future.
The Parable of the Skydiver
(which I just made up)
A man begins to awaken to a burning wind on his face, and a deafening roar in his ears. He reaches for the ripcord of his parachute, but it's not there.
He's able to squint his eyes and look around him, and he spots his parachute falling about 200 feet away. The only way he will survive this fall is if he can get to his parachute.
In his panic, the first thing he does is yell at the parachute to come to him. He screams, "Get over here! Can't you see we're spiraling out of control? Help me!!!" But the parachute is a parachute, and can't hear the man. So the parachute keeps tumbling, and the man keeps tumbling.
He closes his eyes, and says a prayer he remembers hearing a friend say.
G-d grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
the strength to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
- The Serenity Prayer,
adapted from Reinhold Niebuhr
In that moment, he found his inner calm and clarity.
"What am I doing?" the man asks himself. "I can't control the parachute. The only thing I can control is myself."
With that, the man spreads out his arms and legs, his belly towards the ground, his elbows bent with his hands in front of his head, palms down, face down. He stops tumbling.
Next he realizes that if he pivots his hands at the wrist, and his feet at the ankles, they act like rudders to change his direction and spin; and if he opens and closes his arms and legs, it will slow or accelerate his descent.
Now that he has figured out how to control himself, he is able to direct himself to the parachute. He grabs ahold of it, straps it on securely, pulls the ripcord, and slowly and gracefully lands in a field below.
The moral of the story:
When you find yourself spiraling, desperately trying to grab for control of the things around you, <CTRL>+<ALT>+<DEL>.
When things aren't turning out how you envisioned, accept an alternate future instead of dwelling on what could have been if only you had control of everything.
In this you will find serenity.
Don't control the parachute, control yourself and your response to the situation.
In this you will find strength.
Delete your ego from the equation. It inhibits your ability to be objective, and gives you the false sense that you can control what is out of your hands.
In this you will find wisdom.
When in doubt, reboot.
<CTRL>+<ALT>+<DEL>