One of the small joys of introspection is identifying those cognitive traps that restrict our growth. This ego-spelunking process has featured prominently in Western philosophy within the role of the skeptic (e.g. Descartes); in Eastern disciplines such as Buddhism; and in various self-help tomes that provide a mash-up of both (e.g. Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior). In laying out the idiosyncratic ‘metaphysics of Quality’ in his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig proposes a related concept called the ‘gumption trap’ which siphons off your enthusiasm when you encounter “affective, cognitive and psychomotor blocks” in performing a task.

Reginald Braithwaite discusses what might be characterized as one of these self-limiting habits:

Why we are the biggest obstacles to our own growth

This begins by riffing on an observation made by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber in analyzing the import of the mainstream success of Apple among youth, which has now filtered down from the obvious case to financial analysis. Braithwaite carries the idea in a more professional direction, namely that what you know often interferes with your acceptance of something you don’t. Building up a degree of expertise in any discipline means you have potentially more to lose - in comfort and initial efficiency at least - when switching to a novel alternative. Braithwaite’s examples are specific to software programming (Lisp vs Factor, regular expressions in Ruby) but the principle can be applied more broadly. The effects can be seen in resistance to new technologies or methodologies, resulting in foot-dragging up through overt sabotage reminescent of Luddites.

The solution at the individual level is to learn how to stretch, just as you do to extend physical reach. This can mean challenging long-accepted notions on technique that may no longer be the pinnacle solutions they once were, particularly when crossing disciplines—keeping with the software design idea, , for example, when switching from procedural to object-oriented programming. At the group level, extra attention should be paid to transitional aids and training to help lower the resistance borne out of knee-jerk anxiety triggered by a perceived threat to one’s identity.

[EB: Luddite]