Letting curiosity sniff around
The last post was six months ago. Since then, I decided to leave my job, left it in January, and gave myself a couple of months to rest and figure out what sort of relationship I have with writing software.
The thing is, I wasn't sure if I loved writing code, or if I totally hated it.
To find out, I let myself just follow curiosity for some weeks. I started learning Clojure / ClojureScript / re-frame and fell in love with their simplicity. I lost myself in the editor for hours, really enjoying the process of writing code. I've experienced, again, the sort of stimulating trance that brought me close to computers in the first place.
It's been a bit like being a teen in front of a 19" CRT monitor again, figuring out how the heck to compile the Linux kernel to make the cheapo winmodem work in some ancient version of RedHat —the only Linux distro I could get my hands on on CD.
It's quite reassuring to confirm that I like learning, solving problems and writing software. It would seem, then, that it's other things in the environment that were affecting my perception.
Here are some I came up with:
- My body hates being at rest for too long.
- I tend to push myself too hard. I set high expectations and then beat myself if those aren't met. Which leads to long hours and/or feeling anxious.
- I need a connection to the physical work. I need breaks: do pottery, walk a lot, do physical work and connect to matter in other wawys.
- Noise and confusion turn me into a zombie.
- I love accomplishing things, getting things done —and, conversely, get quite frustrated if I can't. This one, I guess, is just a fact of life.
There are fixes for all of these: walk more, remind myself to step away from the computer, tame my expectations, etc. It's workable.
So, hooray! it seems that I'm compatible with writing software. Which may sound stupid but it's a great relief; I had no idea what I would end up doing if the conclusion was that I had just came to hate all of this and needed to switch careers.
I'm happy, and ready for the next step.
:wq
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Tailwind 4.x with ClojureScript