Lack of progress exposed by the Canary MacGuffin
I'm likely in a Canary MacGuffin situation right now. What is the reason?I've been given a task I don't know how to do. So I'm working diligently on learning enough about it. But because I don't know how to do it, there are an infinite number of concepts that may or may not be required to complete the task.So, I am using the time productively in the sense of breaking apart each piece I don't understand, building it myself, learning about it, and moving on to another one.But I haven't collected the key from the shop. Every day, I write down what I need to do again, and it changes and evolves as I learn things. I try again to complete the task, fail again, use it as an opportunity to learn about that piece.If I had just got the key, maybe the task is complete, but I am no closer to being able to obtain a different key, or providing any value on that surface area.So I'm optimizing for my ability to get keys in the future, not getting this particular key.Is that good? Bad? Lots of arguments in both directions I think. Maybe my optimizations are 25% what they could be with direct help. But having experienced direct help, what it actually means is someone talks over my head no matter how much I say I don't understand.They don't get just how far away I am. Given the constraints, all that can be done is to improve to the point where their help, is help.Hopefully that made some level of sense.