Systems are everywhere

Hidden wheels in motion around us, governing our lives without us even realising

When was the last time you realised that the world runs on autopilot? Even if you stopped showing up to your job, things won’t break( I mean, in the grand scheme of things, you will be fired if you don’t show up to work every day for sure). The world would continue as if you never existed. Many decisions are taken for us even before we learn to think or decide, thanks to the pre-existing norms and feedback loops in the society: which language will we speak first, access to resources, life expectancy, subjects in the schooling system, work ethics, and the definition of a good/successful life.

Coming back to systems, we are run by a series of systems. I never realised it until I started building them as a part of my job. I remember when I was a kid, I used to think the government was a black box. Somehow, it had designed this world in a very objective manner, where my life can be lived by sticking to the rules and protocols written in the manual designed by my administrators, teachers, and parents. It was after growing up that I realised that the grownups are as clueless as me about life’s system in general.

So what are systems, and how to identify them? A simple way to recognise one is to look for some elements connected with a common purpose.
Objectively speaking, let us take an example of using our kitchen to cook a meal, let us break it down into its parts:
- Elements: Groceries, utensils, fuel, you(cooking skills)
- Interconnections: you control the gas flame using a knob, groceries are converted using a cooking action(chopping, cutting etc), gas burns the fuel to produce heat to cook, your taste then adjusts the meal (salt and spices) as it is progressing.
- Purpose: fill your tummy with a nourishing meal

Applying these same principles, we can identify systems running around us. Take any real-world example, strip off its facade, and at its core, it is just a system. Be it a university, your bedroom, your car, or your favourite stock. Everything can be broken down into components that are interconnected to get to a common purpose.