Why is the Machine Always Broken?

It might feel broken, but perhaps it was designed that way.

Sep 06, 2021

Note: Don’t like reading? The Podcast audio is at the end of the story.🫡

The machine is always broken.

This realization arrives on a dread pie, but not before you’ve gone through your daily SAD (Sit at Desk) ritual. You calmly negotiate with some procrastination terrorists—perform some unnecessary house cleaning, some idle gazing into space, and some spine color coding of books on a shelf—before you finally enter that room, circle that nest of a desk three times and settle in to lay your creative eggs. A short burst of paper tidying plus a few ritualistic chair adjustments later, and you’re ready to kick this process in the guts and over-egg this mix for real.

Pure thoughts. Keyless entry. Button start. A quick “I’m like a bird” chant. Let’s go!

Silence.

You sit there. Waiting. Fingers as eagles hovering over alphabetical field mice, eager to peck out the eyes of genius. Claws twitching, you are primed to haul wiggly word carcasses to the hungry mouths of an audience you don’t have. Is the handbrake on? Should I jiggle a cable? What’s going on? Why is it that just when you need it the most—to begin work on days when you kinda sorta don’t really wanna—your brain won’t start?

Well, I’m glad you asked because as the proud owner of a broken, out-of-order, run-down disaster of a machine, I’ll tell you this is simply a problem of perception. You need to reframe your disdain for your broken brain.

Time to eat your pie.

Fully-functioning machines that hum and sing and purr and don’t need a good kick in the ping-pings every now and again produce zero accidents. ZERO.

And accidents are the point.

Your broken machine of a brain that spluts and groans and takes some mighty cajoling some days to even fire on one cylinder, let alone eight, is filled with slip-and-falls waiting to happen. Happy accidents of imagination. This is the function—the entire raison d'être—of your broken brain. You don’t want a sign that makes OSHA happy. When you’re inventing something from nothing, you want a workplace sign that says: “It has been 0 days since our last creative accident.” You want a machine that’ll whip off your fingers, mash up your thoughts in the gears of unknowingness, and deliver victorious idea settlements to the conveyor belt on the other side.

Yes, the machine is always broken. But it just works better that way.

This brain, this motor, this engine of immense density and complexity, runs hot and cold or barely runs at all. But it is the puttering and the spluttering that makes you, well…you. Its brokenness is why you think the way you do. Don’t lament it, celebrate it.

You are the custodian of this broken lump of junk, and I use the word junk with the affection of someone who loves a good ferret about at a garage sale. We must tinker with our broken machinery. Hammer against the oppressive rust of de-motivation. Accept the stuttering sounds and occasional defective output that comes from the machinations of our thought. The temptation may be to rise up and smash this machine at the beginning of your own personal “Get my shit together!” revolution, but you’ll only be destroying yourself. The machine is you. You are the machine. The machine is everything.

Beautifully broken. Sublimely sabotaged. Magnificently mangled.

A broken machine like yours or mine (for no two machines are broken in exactly the same way), may not produce delicious creative desserts 24/7, but you’ve got to be patient. Sometimes your machine is simply right in the middle of an 11-step cleaning cycle and will be back online shortly. You don’t need the FTC to investigate why it seems like the machine is always broken. No. You need to slip on your service technician overalls and get to work.

It’s not tools down it’s tools up, buddy. Get out the rags and shine up the shit-show. Dump in the fuel and prime the pumps. You might not get the purest of sounds, the cleanest of air, the sweetest of creative desserts all the time, but it’ll be plugged in and going. There’ll be the low, constant hum of…something.

Warm the parts and pieces of the industrial complex of your brain and get that oil of brilliance flowing. Engine block, writer’s block, creative block—this machine can grind through it all in a furious chug-a-lug of smog-busting drive. Impurities need to move through the system, and the only way to do that is to keep the motor running.

Even when broken this machine is capable of incredible things. As long as you’re getting in there and doing the maintenance and turning the key every day, there’s nothing it cannot (potentially) do.

It kills, it slays, it positively slaughters.

This machine kills time.

This machine kills boredom.

This machine kills regret.

This machine kills procrastination terrorists.

This machine kills jaded.

This machine kills the malaise of melancholy and the stagnation of soul.

This machine kills jealousy and anger, pain and apathy.

This machine is your guitar1, your voice, your instrument, and this machine kills at everything.

The machine is always broken. It’s a feature, not a bug.

Yours in tiny thought,

Janeen

This week’s amends…

Bob Odenkirk’s answer to the question: What’s the best way to hone creative instincts?

“Interesting question. The obvious answer is Work Work Work. Put them to the test. Write stuff, create, then think as deeply as you can about what you did, what worked, what didn’t. The thing is, how “honed” can these instincts be? After 40-some movies shouldn’t every single Woody Allen film be absolutely perfect? But it isn’t, and it never will be. This is because it’s still a creative endeavor, and uncertainty is your partner in it, and you have to use your instincts and skills but know that you will need magic to be “great” and you can’t count on that magic, you just have to do your part and hope it shows up”

Via Reddit - Bob Odenkirk 2017 AMA