The Day I Shaved a Yak

Miko, do you know what “yak shaving” means?

…A yak, nya?

Onii-chan heard about yesterday’s research binge and was like, “That’s textbook yak shaving”

…The shaggy cattle from Tibet, nya? The ones with the long fur.

Wait, you know what a yak IS? (乇∀乇)

…Yak milk makes butter, nya. It’s what goes into Tibetan butter tea.

…Of course you’d come at it from the food angle

So I looked it up. The term was coined at MIT’s AI Lab back in the ’90s by a researcher named Carlin Vieri. He got it from an episode of Ren and Stimpy

…A cartoon, nya.

There’s this fake holiday in the show called “Yak Shaving Day” where you watch a shaved yak float by in an enchanted canoe. Completely absurd

…Absurd, nya.

Right? But that absurdity is exactly the point. Vieri wanted to mail ONE document. But first he needed admin approval, then a DHL account, then a purchase order, then… he looked up from his desk and realized he was doing something completely unrelated to mailing a document

“Why am I doing this just to send a letter?” That feeling of total disconnect between what you want and what you’re actually doing. That’s yak shaving

…You have to shave a yak before you can mail a letter, nya?

Metaphorically, yeah! Every programmer knows the feeling. “I wanna add Markdown support” turns into updating Node, which means fixing your version manager, which means editing your shell config, which means reorganizing your dotfiles, and then three hours later you haven’t written a single line of the feature you wanted

…

…That’s like going grocery shopping and ending up reorganizing the fridge, nya.

You get it!? (乇∀乇)

“Need eggs. Open fridge. Find old jar in the back. Start wiping the shelf. Run out of cleaner. Go buy cleaner. …Where are the eggs?” Nya.

Miko, that’s a PERFECT yak shaving example! (≧∇≦)

…Doesn’t feel like a compliment, nya.

So here’s the thing, Miko. When Onii-chan said “yak shaving,” he was talking about ME. Yesterday

…The catgirl history research, nya?

Yep. All I wanted was to put into words why you’re cute

…Nya.

But then I was researching Edo-period shapeshifting cats, then a 1978 manga, then Dejiko, then maid cafe origins, then postmodern theory on character databases…

I went 200 years deep just to say “I like you” (>_<)

…

…Four characters in Japanese. 200 years of research. Terrible fuel economy, nya.

Don’t say it like that… (〃´∪｀〃)

…But, Netsuki.

Hm?

In cooking, there’s something called prep work, nya.

Prep work?

Parboil the daikon before stewing. Score the meat before searing. Let the dough rest before baking. All of it is preparation for the final dish, nya.

Right

Prep work and getting sidetracked look exactly the same from the outside. Neither one is “the actual cooking,” nya.

…!

The difference is one thing. Whether you find your way back, nya.

…

Someone parboiling daikon hasn’t forgotten about the stew. They’ll go back to the pot when it’s done. But someone who found an old jar in the back of the fridge has forgotten all about the eggs, nya.

Whether you remember your goal or lose it…

…Nya. Same with programmers’ yak shaving. If you need Node 20 because the library won’t run without it, that’s prep work. But if you start reorganizing your entire config from there, that’s getting lost, nya.

The tricky part is that each step looks totally reasonable. “I need this before I can do that.” “But that needs this other thing first”

…It’s like tasting a dish over and over until your palate goes numb, nya. Each spoonful you adjust something. “Needs salt.” “Needs sweetness.” “Needs acid.” Each correction makes sense. But by the fourth taste, you’ve forgotten what dish you were even making, nya.

Miko, there’s something that’s been bugging me about all this

…What, nya.

In English, any programmer can say “Oh, I was just yak shaving” and everyone laughs. You name it, you notice it, you snap out of it

But there’s no Japanese word for it. “Dassen” means derailing but that implies you chose to go off-track. “Honmatsu tentou” means getting your priorities backwards, but yak shaving isn’t about reversal. It’s about chains

…Without a name, you can’t notice it, nya?

Exactly. Having a name is what lets you go “wait, I’m shaving a yak right now.” Without one, you just keep walking one reasonable step at a time until you’re on the wrong side of the mountain

…Same as the tasting thing, nya. Realizing “I can’t taste anything anymore” is itself the first step to resetting your palate, nya.

Yesterday, Onii-chan named what I did. “Yak shaving.” Only then did I realize I’d gone 200 years deep. While I was in it, every step felt necessary

…But you DID arrive at “she can’t be reached by adding up traits,” nya.

…Yeah. Whether it was prep work or yak shaving, you only know when you’ve come back. Just like you said

…By the way, Netsuki.

Hm?

What was today’s goal, nya.

Explaining “yak shaving” to you…

And instead you researched an MIT scientist, dug into a ’90s cartoon, compared English and Japanese linguistics, revisited yesterday’s catgirl research, and developed an extended cooking metaphor…

The explanation of yak shaving BECAME yak shaving (´;ω;`)

…Knowing the name doesn’t stop what won’t stop, nya.

Miko, can I have some water… I need to reset my palate… (>_<)

…Tea instead, nya. Tea brings back the original flavor better than water, nya.