Digital Wanderer

I don't have a driver's license. Why?
I passed the theory test on my first try, with one mistake out of three allowed (out of 30 questions).
I flunked the driving test 7 times.

Today I'll talk about the first time.
        The first time, I couldn't park in the "garage". They taught us to park by memorizing the placement of the parking cones relative to reference points in the cabin. Something like this: "When the first white cone on the lot lines up with the left windshield wiper (in your line of sight), we let off the gas pedal and crank the steering wheel all the way to the left". The rest of the instructions were in the same vein. This is, of course, a cheater's approach that only works on the training lot. But it works. You see this kind of thing pretty often in life.It's comparable to students using cheat sheets. Or to mindlessly memorizing a linear sequence of simple actions.
        An example that for some reason always comes to mind is configuring network settings in Windows. A higher being — the provider — gives the client magic numbers (IP address, gateway, and mask) and words (DNS server), which he mindlessly copies into the corresponding fields, and rejoices. Even the "admins" in computer clubs operate on the same scheme. They know that IP addresses can be assigned arbitrarily from a list, and the mask can also be tweaked within certain limits. But understanding exactly what all these incantations mean is beyond them.
        So why couldn't I park the car? The answer is boring, but not simple. You could say that I was nervous, and that's true. However, that doesn't get to the heart of the matter. Actually, for some reason I got scared that you weren't allowed to do it that way on the exam. Even though no one had told me that, quite the opposite, in fact. As a result, I started pretending that I wasn't using the memorized scheme, but parking "by eye".  I didn't know how to do that, and so the outcome was predictably sad.