For the past couple of days I’ve been praddling about ideals baked into programming.
So I would mull over and over whether or not I’m making the right choice, whether or not I’m on the right path, whether or not I’ve found the keys to the kingdom. Scoured many forums, paced back and forth and agonized about ideals such as “simplicity” and “practicality” or “elegance.”
So although I was tempted to make a post about what “answers” I found from all this mulling, a fundamental truth flattened all other facts.
That, obviously, I was getting caught up in things that didn’t matter again.
But don’t you want to make simple software?
Don’t you want to find the nirvana in its elegance?
Stop, stop, STOP! These questions are meant to entice you, to get you caught up in someone else’s ideals. If you don’t have any ideals yourself, you are just prey to cults and other ideologies. How easily influenced we all are! (I am, at least).
So, instead of getting caught up in drivel once more, I realized that, again, and again, and again, you need to define your own principles. As in, what drives you? You have to zoom out.
After inspecting each tree and leaf I didn’t once consider the forest. There was no big picture. No matter how much inspecting, I couldn’t help but feel confused. And so I zoomed out — from the awe of the soil, a contained beauty in each leaf. As I stood perched upon the hillside, mist delivered cold melancholy. Looking through the mist one could see a burial site, in the forest’s center. It dawned on me where the mist was imbued.
Every admirable project I came across was someone’s legacy. In this snow glow of a computer screen were works that swallowed up a life. All those opinions and ideals I read online came from people burrowed deep within the forest, tangled with the trees, rarely traveling outside. You don’t hear anything else from them beyond their howls for .simplicity.. The initial beauty hide all the sacrifice in its wake.
One cannot deny the significance of the Cyberneti Forest. It is the very foundation of modern living, and a life-source for many. It’s powerful, and for some a worthy place to dwell. But the Cyberneti is a demanding child of nature, requiring far more of your limited time than I would want to give. I do not want to give up so much while other interesting livings wait. So this helped me conclude my quest’s driving principles:
I object to doing things that computers can do.