Form over Substance
I really dislike hollow Easter chocolate. I have since I was a little kid.
It’s just…
there’s something…
dishonest about it.
For many years, I figured it was simply because I like candy (chocolate in particular) and the lack of anything inside said hollow candies simply served-up a chocolate shell of disappointment.
Move forward to the point, I worked closely with a university IT director over our email and directory systems (amongst other things I regularly had to deal with his department for). He had a square of paper taped above the whiteboard in his office. It simply read:
F/S
As I found myself asking this director for guidance one day, we eventually reached the point where he asked me what I thought it meant.
“Not sure,” I said. “I’m guessing a fraction of some sort. ‘F’ over ‘S’ or something along those lines.”
“Right,” he said, “but what do the letters stand for?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“‘Form’ and ‘Substance.’ It stands for ‘Form over Substance’ and I have there as a reminder to not allow that to happen.”
We went on to discuss it further, and why it was in his office.
He had worked for the university for decades at the point he and I were working together. He had seen so many odd things (politically and bureaucratically) that he came to the conclusion there were some who worked with us who were more concerned with the Form of a product or service than they were Substance of said product or service. He had become a touch jaded.
Do not get me wrong — I like Form. I love it. I’m an Apple user (and have been for over two decades) and it’s expected Form will be part of the product. I like beautiful things. I walk into the Detroit Institute of Arts and I see wonderful examples of Form. There is nothing wrong with Form.
There’s nothing wrong with Form… except when it’s used as just that. If there is no Substance, Form is empty. It is nothing. It might be pretty, but it’s nothing substantial. Nothing useful. It’s a gossamer-thin coating. It’s hollow Easter candy.
Usually, Form is created with the best of intentions — if it looks good, it will be good… right? The artifice has been created, Substance will follow… yes?
Well, maybe. Pretty damn unlikely, though. Things don’t just occur because you want them to — you need to do the work. Otherwise, all you end up doing is pissing-off some little kid when he bites the head off that piece of hollow Easter candy and is greeted with nothing but air on the inside.
Those who focus on Form first and foremost end up failing because they’ve created nothing but a shell. But they want that shell. For some reason, that shell is the thing they keep coming back to… and those individuals never understand why they keep failing.
I’m unsure why lack of Substance isn’t more easily identified by those individuals. One would think they would see the constant lack of any “there” there and want to try to improve — but they just repackage the same old stuff.
I could go on, but I won’t… I just know I’m tired of eating hollow candy.