You Can't Make Mistakes.

John D. Martin III

John, a native of Flint, Michigan, has just finished a MA thesis in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at the American University in Cairo. The thesis is a study of cosmology as it relates to the divine names in the works of thirteenth century Egyptian mystic and theurgist Abu-l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Yūsuf al-Qurashī al-Būnī (d. 622H / 1225CE). Additionally, he is presently researching the topic of the formation of conceptions of heterodoxy and deviance in Islamic society.

John amuses himself in whatever spare time is available with the construction and maintenance of GNU / Linux systems and and increasingly complex home network environment of his own design. He has worked as an IT consultant at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and has experience in system administration, web application deployment and network integration. John’s current technological interests tend to be focused on the Digital Humanities and the digitization and management of physical books and manuscripts.

A note on the title of this site from the author: “My dad always used to tell us when we were kids that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can’t make mistakes. This apparently was something that his grandfather used to tell him. It took me a long time to figure out what he meant. I always thought it might contain a hint of arrogance or recklessness, but my dad isn’t that kind of guy. A few years ago it dawned on me: ‘if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can’t make mistakes’ is a mantra for living fully and being successful and happy. I have come to interpret it as ‘if you operate as though there are no parameters for measuring failure, then you have removed the most difficult obstacle.’ Each new thing learned is a tool; there are few, if any, skill-sets that cannot be mastered with perseverance. This is more than being a jack-of-all-trades. That aphorism about being a jack-of-all-trades but master of none is silly and limiting. It is wholly possible to have deep and intimate understanding of a variety of different skill- and knowledge-sets without compromising the integrity of each. In most cases, they enhance each other in ways that are unpredictable in advance of acquiring them. I would not advocate actually being a ‘jack-of-all-trades,’ but there is no sense at all in saying to oneself: ‘but I am a banker, I can’t possibly build a house.’ Of course you can. Perhaps not without some acquisition of skills and knowledge (either theoretical or practical), but that is well within reach. ‘If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can’t make mistakes’ is a mantra for removing the limiting beliefs that preoccupy our minds and disallow us achieving our goals—personal, professional or otherwise. Do you know what you’re doing?”