A teenager who is frustrated at not being able to perform a tricky Nintendo jump yells at the TV screen and throws the controller against the wall. (Will a broken controller make the jump more effectively?)
A friend who was borrowing my apartment thought it was too cold, so he pushed the thermostat up to 80 to make it warm up faster.
Frustrated by my slow pace on the Interstate (only 70 in a 65 zone), the driver behind me flashes his lights, zooms around, cuts in front of me, and exits—so he can wait at a red light at the end of the off-ramp.
This is all a version of the old saying, "A watched pot never boils." With a given amount of heat, that quantity of water will take the same amount of time to boil, whether you are standing there yelling at it or doing something else entirely. Some things just are what they are (to borrow a cliché). The genius Japanese programmer who made the Nintendo game doesn't know (or care) about the kid's frustration, and neither does the game itself. It's made to do what it does, waiting for the exact sequence of keystrokes so that jump will execute. My electric baseboard heat is either on or it's off. Set it to 70 or set it to 90—it will cover the ground between 65 degrees and 70 in exactly the same time. And speaking of 65 and 70, the guy who drives an Interstate like a NASCAR race can rarely shave more than a few seconds off his trip because most of us travel about the same speed and we keep getting in his way.
We would like to believe we can intimidate the world into cooperation. It seemed to work when we were kids on the playground, so we keep trying it. Citizens yell at helpless government employees at the Welfare Department when a claim has been denied. Mothers yell at principals and school board members when their kids fail courses. But ask yourself whether it really works. When was the last time a baseball coach got an umpire to change a call?
For my part, I try to act the role of the Amused Bystander. When the computer (or video game) doesn't do what I want, I stop and take a second look. I ask how things like furnaces and stoves work, so I know whether to hope for more action if I change the setting. And I use the toilet before I leave work, so that extra nanosecond on the Interstate really doesn't matter very much to me.
