Ideal of Optimization vs Way of the Raccoon

I notice many people "hunt" for the ideal parking place. This simple scenario shows how difficult it is to "optimize" even basic stuff. "Difficult" is not the word, it's impossible. 

One reason it's impossible is the boundaries of the problem, and the variables being optimized are arbitrary. A person might elect to optimize time, or energy, or whatever and follow a simple scheme meant to do that when parking. In every case, the model will omit potentially important factors, or will operate over arbitrary time spans, or whatever, and will be simply incorrect. Then the overall costs in time and energy of parking lots, or roads, or cars, yada yada end up being treated as fixed constant values rather than another even more complicated set of variables to consider. Aspects of the problem won't even have a mathematical representation--like the value of functional health... like almost everyone would be better off walking a certain distance every day, so the "optimal" parking spot might be 1 mile away from a store.

Since it's impossible to develop a useful model, individuals, then masses of people follow a monkey-see-monkey-do strategy. They learn an overall pattern for the parking algorithm from their parents, friends, and watching others. This mass behavior becomes "the system".

Once there's a system, bureaucrats and dweebs try to optimize elements of it, like tweaking road building methods, adding "start/stop" systems to cars and the like. Those attempts at optimization are similarly fraught. Often they're the outcome of academic research that's akin to research seen in dietary advice, or exercise advice, which flip-flops every few years. For example, a few years ago all the running and cycling experts were heavily promoting "zone 2 training"--meaning the best way to train was lots of easy miles. Previously, they strongly advocated "high intensity training", and now they returned to that after touting zone 2 training.

The raccoon lives in the negative spaces of the human world. I think this is good advice for the humans that can take it. Let's go back to the "weight training" idea from the previous post. The masses go to the gym. The gym has formalized equipment that's part of "the system". Instead, get a bag of sand and walk up and down an irregular hill while holding it in different positions. There's your raccoon workout. Or instead of a bag of sand carry a log, or a bundle of chains, a boulder or whatever.

One of the weird side-effects of the way of the raccoon is it is inherently "cheaper"--like a log is free and a boulder is free. While all the life-scripts and solutions of "the system" come with a fee or other expenses because the masses buy them, like a weight set is expensive, which is really strange if you think about it.