Geekflex

I’m going to let you in on a secret: I think better inside the box. When faced with limitless possibilities and endless choices I get overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. I’m pretty good at getting from point A to point B, but I need to know is where point B is. I can figure out where point A is by analysing the current situation, whatever that may be.

When it comes to programming, point B is usually a working program that performs a given feature set. Point A is me with my set of tools. Those tools include programming languages, problem solving experience, Google-fu and whatever I have installed on my computer. These are among the items I have in my box. There are lots of things I can do inside my box, and the better I understand these tools the more I can do with them.

In life, my box contains all the people I’ve encountered, everything I’ve ever learned and all the experiences I’ve ever had. The universe according to me is everything that I can see from within my box. The skills I’ve developed, from professional to social, are also tools in my box. When graduating from university was my point B, it was these tools that I relied on to make it there. I honed and sharpened them and got used to them. My box was geared entirely towards achieving my goal. Once I graduated — my point B reached — I was left with a box of tools, and the feeling that most of them were no longer relevant. I found myself wondering now what?

I’m stuck in a box.

The lesson I’ve been slowly coming to terms with is that the universe doesn’t fit in a box. This box wasn’t always closed. The goals and tools that were there had to come from somewhere. I’m the one that limited my vision and focused too closely on a particularly moment. The box needs to open up again and let new goals find their way in. I can learn new skills and new tools and sharpen them as necessary. I’ll meet new people and let them help shape part of my universe. I just don’t know how I’m going to do it yet.

But I do know that I’m getting out of my box.

See you on the flip side. ;-)

Okay, there are really two hardest parts about blogging.

The most obvious one is actually sitting down to do it on a regular basis and not letting it stagnate. There’s an easy solution for that, and it’s the same one every blogger will you: make a regular schedule and stick to it. Then it becomes routine. It’s just like going to the gym. That’s a horrible analogy because I hate going to the gym. But I love writing.

The more subtle quirk to blogging has more to do with the writing process itself — something I know very little about. The last time I received any kind of formal education in “Creative Writing” was probably in high school. The hard part for me isn’t in translating my thoughts into words, but in knowing when to stop and just click “Publish”.

If I’m left to my own devices, I might just ramble on into eternity flitting from topic to tangent in some kind of endless pattern. If I’m not careful, a post about code could end up with unicorns and rainbows. I need to be able to realize when I’ve said my piece and move on — and not end up in a situation where I’ve combined several unrelated blog post ideas into one massively incoherent post.

And here’s the worst part: once my post is done, I’ll read it over. That’s where insecurity kicks in and I begin to second-guess myself. It’s like going over a final exam to double-check all my math, and then asking myself if I really solved the problem using the right method. Often, my first instinct is correct — but looking over the same problem again I start doubting myself. At this juncture in the writing process I feel like I’m faced with three choices:

• Publish now and release something imperfect on the world
• Revise and edit, running the risk of obscuring my original point
• Discard the post entirely and it will never see the light of day

It’s more like a flow-chart, really:

It was my leaning towards that last option that caused my previous blog to fail more than anything else. There were a number of posts that I’d written which never made it out of the Revise <-> Publish loop, and many more that were written and then discarded.

Publishing takes a combination of guts and apathy. You have to realize that no matter what you release, it will never be perfect. The Revise <-> Publish loop is more likely to just dull down your point until it becomes a softened nub and loses its impact. Each iteration will remove some of the edginess and replace it with something more politically correct, more agreeable, more average. The post ceases to become an expression of original thought, and ends up being a reflection of everyone else’s thoughts. And that’s how I lost my voice in the noise.

In Elizabeth Gilbert’s recent TED talk, she talks about a disembodied “genius” that provides creativity as a “psychological construct that protects you from the result of your work.” This is why I was motivated into starting a new blog instead of reviving the old one. Calling the blog by something other than my name allows me to distance myself from what I write. I can establish an identity that is mostly-me-but-not-entirely and be far removed from it enough to release something that isn’t perfect. Now when I see something I can think “this is a topic that would be great for Geekflex” as oppose to “this is something that I should blog about sometime.” As for those things that don’t fit on Geekflex, that’s what twitter is for.