It's been a while since I last made a post and I'm not really sure where to begin. I'd like to start writing regularly again and while I do write a little blurb in my analog journal every morning, I want to do more long form blog posts as an outlet for some of my philosophical thoughts and energies that don't get expressed in my regular work. It's pretty dang early right now so my thoughts are a little less than totally coherent but I'll give this a go any how.

This morning I'm thinking about time, I think about time a lot these days. This is in large part because it seems to pass me by at lighting speed. The hours melt into day which melt into weeks and months and years. I can't believe it's been 3 months since I left Disbelief. I've gotten an amazing amount done in this 3 months but it doesn't ever quite feel like enough.

That's the big kicker, "what it feels like". Perception is everything in life. When I was a kid I turned my nose up at liver because I perceived it as being unpalatable, but as an adult beef and chicken liver is one my favorite foods. When I was a teenager and young adult working as a line cook fine restaurants I envied programmers and professional gamers because I perceived that they had a relaxing and easy job. My job cooking at the time was very demanding and I was on the road to burn out (a concept I didn't yet understand). When I first started out in programming I felt insecure and doubted my self endlessly because I perceived that my code was of poor quality and too slowly composed.

All of these perceptions were only partially correct but failed to wholistically understand the picture of my situation at the time.

Liver is indeed unpalatable when you compare it to the hyper palatable foods I was accustomed to as a child (chicken nuggets, potato chips, french fries, ice cream). But when you really feel hunger and your body genuinely need nutrients, say after a long fast or when you enter ketosis or if you just get off sugar for a while, then foods like liver and veggies and fermented dairy and other food perceived as being unpalatable actually start to taste good.

Programming is certainly a "relaxing" and "easy" job when you only compare it to running around a hot kitchen for 12 hours at a time without eating and to consider the mental energy required as well as the more considerable opportunity cost to sitting in a chair staring at a computer monitor all day every day (specifically the health costs).

My code as a new programmer was certainly low quality and slowly written if you were to only to compare it to my code now, 6 years in, or the code of my boss at the time. But if you think about the purpose of my code at that time, which was generally written for lower priority, low stakes projects and tasks then the quality and speed was likely exactly appropriate.

My perception, and more broadly people's perception in general, is always incomplete and semi-unreliable. You're eyes see everything in front of you but not behind. Your ears hear all around you but only so far. Of everything you see only a small part is perceived by your concious mind. Of everything you hear the majority is filtered out to save your mind from madness. Of all that your concious mind perceives your thought can only wrap themselves around and carry part of it. Humans can focus well on one or 2 things and cast predictions just so far into the future, and then our limited minds begin to show there limits. We must accept that we are flawed and have faith that we can carry on through our limitations.

Before I get to lofty and platonic let me tie this back to my life and the real world. Since leaving Disbelief and my most recent job as a programmer in October of last year (2021) I've been working hard every day building my homestead here in Vermont. I particular I've been working on 3 things simultaneously.

  1. I've been building a 25' Yurt from scratch for my wife and I to live in.
  2. I've been working our 11 acre piece of land to ready it for the yurt and to generally make it livable (i.e. Infrastructure like a drive way, a well, electricity, etc.)
  3. I've been designing and building a sauna building on the land for us to use as a sauna, shower house and storage/guest building.

When I think about these projects I get a little freaked out because I see how much more there is to do and feel discouraged by my apparent lack of progress. I struggle to perceive my real situation, that of on man working on a 3 projects large enough for a dozen and limited by time, money, weather and skill (which increases slowly each day). My desire to move onto my land come spring adds to my anxiety and further distorts my perception by adding a looming sense of urgency to complete all these projects in the next 4 months before the ground thaws and I get a new set of projects to complete (yurt platform, garden, workshop building, electrical trenching, well drilling, etc, etc.)

Add on top of that the emotional and psychological anxiety and perception warping influence of not having the security of a full time job and living with your parents and you quickly end up in self-doubtville. When tackling any project it's important to have faith in your ability to get it done, and to set your mind to the work irrespective of the time line. It's easy to get discouraged by slow progress and quit altogether. But if realize that if you just keep working, keep grinding, keep hammering you'll get there, you'll achieve something then you can have faith in yourself and the process to complete your projects and live your life fully.

Boiling it down a cliches and a platitudes: "Never give up" or "Just don't quit" are good candidates. But understanding the problems of perception that prevent you from heeding those wise saying can be helpful to keep working and stop worrying.

I'm running out of time this AM and don't want to get too carried away with this post. I've not proof read this fully and know for sure I've made some spelling and grammar mistakes. However excessive editing can cause a writer to never publish and since this is just a post on my mostly meaningless personal blog even one proof read might be over kill. Please excuse my many errors