Relay races are strange affairs. For something traditionally athletically subdivided mathematically, lengthwise, between equal and often matched colleagues, the reality is often far from the theory. Conceptually we imagine all handovers similarly, an exchange of effort, responsibility, toting, at a predesigned point, withing fixed parameters, and but a fleeting halt in a race continuing to a clearly defined predetermined finish.
The vagaries of reality of course do no follow the Olympian traditions, tend to be messy, badly organized, changeovers occurring in determinedly, ad hoc, as circumstances insist or allow, for myriad purposes, from the purely mundane to the most catastrophic. Teams tend to be badly matched, of varying sizes and abilities, ensuring progress is decidedly haphazard, of unspecific speed or effort, sometimes enhancing, possibly debilitating.
Evolution is a relay, of poorly trained and suited participants, with arbitrary rules, the results utterly capricious, whimsical.
Daily Abstract Thoughts 