Details

 "Pay attention to the details." "It's a game of inches." "Missed me by that much." "Close only counts in horseshoes." We have many expressions and cliches that point out the importance of the little things. Success or failure often turns on focus - not just a split section recognition, but an awareness of where to focus. When musicians rehearse a song they've done a thousand times, a song they can play in their sleep, it becomes clear how important the details are: they'll go over a note or a pause multiple times, until it's at just the right length and pitch. How many of us are expert enough to detect the difference in a performance or a recording? Chess players talk of a "blindness," when part of the board becomes "invisible," when they can't see a piece - or its movement - even though it's right in front of them.

Teachers run into this problem all the time with students. It's not just that students fade-out or day-dream. It's that students can get sloppy about the little things. Who cares where the comma goes? Well, there's the story of the panda in the restaurant. If it eats, shoots and leaves, call the police; if it eats shoots and leaves, call the grocery store. (Are "shoots and leaves" nouns or verbs?) How often do students get simple directions wrong - name in the upper left hand corner, not the bottom of the page - because they don't pay attention?

Yet when they start out, students are all about details. Watch a group of kindergarten kids doing an art project. Everything has to be just right. Their questions are all about the details. The slightest deviation raises a firestorm. And babies are really into minutiae - just watch one play with a piece of paper she found on the floor.

"It's all in the fine print." Somehow we've come to not just ignore the details, but to distrust them. The contractor puts in a cabinet, and covers up the quarter inch gap with an extra layer of putty. The credit card company puts the details in a hard-to-read font to obscure how unfair the terms are. 

I suspect details have gone down the drain in part because of multi-tasking. We think we can do multiple things at once. We can talk on the phone and bake a cake. This is true, so long as neither requires much focus, much attention to detail. "Hold on, I've got to find the sugar." "I'll call you back, I have to count the eggs." Or the speaker drops a bombshell - and the ignored blender spews goop on the counter. Pay attention to what we pay attention to when we're yanked out of the multi-tasking zone.

The multi-tasking theory of life coincides with what used to be called rudeness, and probably now is just lack of awareness - lack of focus. I hate call-waiting. And have you ever been talking to a sales person, a professional - say your doctor - when he or she gets a call and puts you on hold? Why is the interruptor more important? How many people - students especially! - hide behind a computer instead of engaging in conversation?

Why? Because the details are dirty. They're nitty-gritty. They mess things up. They're the little smudge on the white canvas of life. They're the drop of grease on the tablecloth. Here's an irony: perfectionists miss the details for the detailed. 

And yet, when it counts, we go into detail. Every penny - or the equivalent thereof. There are many observations about how to determine a person's character, how to "take the measure of a man."  What calls his attention away from everything else? What does she focus on, instinctively? And when?

Where are the details of your life?

Responsibility

One of the first things we're taught - or should be taught - is "take responsibility for your actions." But what does that mean? Most of us would probably say it means something like, if you mess up, admit it. You know, point to your chest and say, "my bad." If you break a window, cause a fender-bender, or don't do your homework because the basketball game was more interesting - admit it. 

And take the consequences. Accept the punishment. Pay for the window, don't complain about the bad grade.

But this is all after-the-fact responsibility. And there are two pitfalls (at least two) with after-the-fact responsibility. First, the damage is already done. There can be recompense or punishment (I would argue in some cases there can't be both, but that's another discussion), but the failure, or breakdown, or disaster, can't be reversed. Second, it's possible to be responsible for something for which we're not really responsible. That is, we may have to accept responsibility for actions over which we have no control. There are events we truly cannot foresee; not all of these are natural disasters.  I don't include lack of maintenance or vigilance, though fatigue or emotional distress may be mitigating factors. But who can predict where lightning will strike? We are also responsible for individuals who work for us who act against our wishes or instructions. Agents or messengers who betray our trust or simply don't do the job; we have to be responsible for their irresponsibility.

Of course, while we'd like legal responsibility and moral responsibility to not just intersect, but to synchronously overlap, that's not always the case. We are legally responsible for an employee who slaps a customer, to use an extreme case, but probably not morally responsible. We - or our company - will have to pay damages (and we'll probably fire the employee), but are we really responsible for the employee's behavior? Not if we believe in free will.

Conversely, there are cases where we may be morally responsible but not legally so. I think many would argue this is even more egregious. For example, a teacher who belittles a child - "Jonny, you can't draw! Why do you even try?" - is morally responsible for the harm to the child's feelings and psyche, but not legally so. There's no liability.

Taking responsibility serves as a test of character. I don't just mean learning from one's mistakes. I mean becoming a better person - working on the weaknesses (and we all have them), becoming aware of the flaws so that we begin with before-the-fact responsibility.

And that's really what we mean, or want to mean, when we say "take responsibility." Before-the-fact responsibility can be as simple as spell-checking or keeping accurate records. It often entails enlisting a second person - having an editor or doing a cross check. 

I recently supervised the loading of a kosher product from a storage tank into a tanker truck. The workers used several methods - electronic, mechanical, and human - to maintain the product integrity and to accurately measure the amount of product being shipped. Never underestimate the power or value of a paper trail.

Being human, we will inevitably experience the consequences of an after-the-fact responsibility. More important, though, is before-the-fact responsibility. Paying the bill fixes an after-the-fact. But only remorse, self-examination, self-improvement - teshuva, or return, in Hebrew - corrects a before-the-fact lapse. 

Perhaps after-the-fact is for others. Before-the-fact is for yourself.