I’ve never really been able to figure out what all the fuss is about when it comes to control. Without a shred of doubt, control really is the most amazing phenomenon in nature. Gravity is groovy, and lightning is fun, but organic, autonomous control is by far the brightest star in Mother Nature’s galaxy of ingenious creations. It is the essence of life itself. Perhaps that is why the control systems we create, such as cruise control systems in cars, are so amazing. Sometimes, it almost seems as if they’re alive—as though they are mimicking what a person does. In some very important ways, they are.
Here’s the thing: For a lump of matter to live and keep on living, that lump must somehow be able to prevent its internal states from being tossed and turned by the unpredictably changing conditions that engulf it. If conditions inside the lump vary along with changes outside the lump, if it gets as hot or as cold as the environment around it, or as wet or as dry, it will not continue living for very long.
Just as the hall monitors inside busy school buildings keep the conditions of the school halls in particular states—not too noisy, not too much bustle, not too messy—we’re endowed with a virtual army of monitors that are perfectly equipped by nature to keep our insides in particular states—not too cold, not too hot, not too bored, not too excited, not too ignored, not too loved, not too pressured, not too underestimated, not too tired, not too patient, and on and on for the entirety of all that we are.
Control is as normal as sunshine. Everyone controls, all the time. Ironically, when people complain about other people’s controlling proclivities, it’s usually because those other people are somehow interfering with the controlling the complainer wants to get on with.
So, let’s just clear the decks and agree that control is an “EATT” (everywhere-all-the-time) phenomenon. Whether you want to call it “regulation” or “homeostasis” or some other term is beside the point. The fact that we control is, well, just that. A fact.
It has crossed my mind that a curious person might be wondering why I’m so hung up on control and what’s so important to me about other people recognizing and adoring their controlling natures. Well, once we accept that every living person is a controller, and once we get a handle on how that control works, we might begin to figure out how we can all control the things that are important to us without stopping other people from doing the same thing.
Why should we be concerned about the extent to which we stop other people from controlling? See, this is why it’s important to understand how control works. Controllers are built to keep things the way they prefer. If you interfere with the preferences of another controller, that controller will do whatever is necessary to remove your effects and restore what is important to the state or condition they have in mind. Removing your effects so that they can get on with their controlling is likely, at least some of the time, to interfere with your controlling. Can you see where this is heading?
And we have lots and lots of preferences, so once you understand what’s going on, it can seem a bit like tiptoeing through a minefield to try and avoid interfering with everyone else’s controlling. Heck, that will hardly leave any time for you to get on with your own controlling!
Actually, it’s probably impossible to totally avoid getting in the way of other controllers. But what is entirely possible is to understand that all forms of objecting, complaining, tantrums, remonstrations, protesting, moaning, and so on, are all attempts by controllers to make their worlds be right. If we recognize these attempts to reduce error for what they are, we might be able to do something helpful about them. If you’re interested in this idea of how controllers can all get along together in the same space, you should read Controlling People: The paradoxical nature of being human, which I wrote a few years ago with my good friend and colleague, Rick Marken.
Appreciating ourselves as controllers might help us begin to understand why we do the things we do. In fact, we might become clearer about what it is we’re doing when we do anything at all.
Whenever you do something, anything, no one made you do it, and nothing else did either. You made you do it. I didn’t make you do it, the words on the screen didn’t make you do it, your star sign didn’t make you do it, the memories of your scary year-3 teacher didn’t make you do it, not even that person you’re secretly trying to impress made you do it. You’re doing it, because you’re you, and because you’re a controller. You did it, because your world, or some part of it, is tilting in a way that isn’t right (for you). Everything we do is about getting things back on an even keel and keeping them there, keeping things in balance.
You alone hold the key to your own contentment. It is true that much of our contentment is extracted from the environments we inhabit, including the relationships we grow. But the importance of things in our lives is established from within each of us. Those parts of our cacophonic environments that we pay attention to come from within as well. What we pay attention to depends entirely on our own internal preferences and goals. Our own internal doing.
Once we understand that what we’re doing is controlling, we might be able to control much better. We might help to build a world where controllers help others control and, in the process, enhance their own controlling. We have barely caught a glimpse of the possibilities that will be available to us as we learn more about the magic that is control.
