What's 'What's that about?' about?

Pt 2 of 2: Using What's That About (the process)

In my last blog I introduced 'What's that about?' (WTA) in general. Now we'll have a look at how to use WTA (the process) in our wonderful world of weird.

I love a TV show called, 'Air Crash Investigations'. It's a great template for whenever we are faced with a WTA event. For the investigators it is clear:

1) An aircraft has crashed.

2) Find out how it happened in order to

3) Prevent it from happening again.

The actual investigation process has been refining itself since the first train crash (September 1830 in the UK). Nowadays, the investigators aren't looking for who's to blame and who to punish. What they look for is; 'what happened?' - all of it...

1) An aircraft has crashed.

. Seven minutes after take-off a pilot sent a mayday saying the number 3 engine was on fire (WTA).

. The pilots flew the plane to within 3 kilometres of the airport (with heroic difficulty) (WTA) .

. The plane crashed into an 11 storey apartment block - severing the life thread of 49 people including crew - (WTA) .

2) Find out how it happened.

. First things first ... start looking for the black boxes - only one is recovered from 11 storeys of rubble mixed with the wreckage of a 747 with a belly full of cargo.

. Eye witness reports include sightings of something falling into a lake minutes before the crash.

. Lake is searched - an engine is found and identified as number 4 engine (WTA).

. Engine has some foreign paint on it (WTA)

. The right wing's engines fell off. Yes, both of them, yes, fell off - (WTA)

Ah huh! Engine 4 had been hit by number 3 as it fell off (WTA)..

. From the rubble haystack a needle -the mounting pin of engine #3 - was found to have broken (WTA)

. Metallurgical examination showed a metal fatigue crack.

. A check of records uncovered that the same event occurred in a different 747, on the other side of the world, 9 months earlier.

3) Prevent it from happening again.

. The investigation showed that the fire alert was a false warning caused by the damage arising from the loss of the engines.

. It also showed that due to the loss of hydraulics the aircraft was doomed from the moment the single small part gave way to fatigue.

. And it clarified that the pilots were innocent of any error.

Action required:

. Report to Boeing.

. Boeing developed a stronger pin.

. Boeing replaced all relevant pins on all 747s in global service.

. It hasn't happened again - Yay!

So when something in our life 'fails' (i.e. doesn't go the way we expect it to), a solid investigation into the cause(s) of that unwanted event, can allow us to make sure things go at least a bit better next time (maybe heaps better ... or even brilliantly). A good job on a specific problem can even stop it from happening again.

That goes for us as humans in our relationships as well. Common ingredients for our personal crashes - small and/or catastrophic can include; a lack of resources (material, intellectual or psychological), novel situations, physical restraints and often, even good intentions.

So we investigate, if the situation warrants; WTA when we miss our flight; when our relationship breaks down; when we miss out on the dream job; when our child tells us they hate us or when we find out we are actually, really, truly-ruly mortal; clouds a.k.a. millions of tonnes of water drifting on a spring zephyr, up in the sky.

Note to the new player; often it is the seemingly little things we normally skip over that can be the most rewarding.

And if our investigations, our 'What's that about?' inquiries are earnest, possibly, more likely probably, our lives become less weird, more easeful, and the 'fails' become more manageable. We may even stop wasting time and energy trying to fix the unfixable, and reallocate that energy toward learning how to more skilfully manage those intractable aspects of life.

So that's what What's that about?'' (the process) is about.