Technological Midlife Crisis
For anybody who has been waiting for me to continue my work on scripting languages for DB4O, I am sorry to have dropped the ball. I find myself having a technological midlife crisis. Let me explain.
In a normal midlife crisis, a man may fear that he has married the wrong woman, or he may fear that he has failed to realize his potential, or he may make sudden impulsive changes in his life to take advantage of his last chance at a dream. He could question everything he has done, and feel that it has no value. That is what I am going through – not in the rest of my life, which has settled nicely, but in my work.
I dislike spending all of my time thinking about how things are done rather than why. I dislike being so involved in the details that I do not even think about why I am doing things. It’s all about how. How do I install Ruby on Rails on a Linux box? How do I use LINQ with DB4O? I like being able to do this stuff, but the how of it monopolizes all of my time and effort. I have been learning how to do this stuff for so long I am not sure why I ever wanted to do it in the first place.
Lately, my clients have seemed lost, too. They build systems because they have a budget, and just because that’s what you do to manage information. Right? I feel more like a digital janitor, sweeping bits and bytes from here, putting them there, and then I go home. At least a janitor produces something everybody can see. Nobody knows what I do other than the dissatisfied few who share my lot. Am I being fair to my coworkers? Probably not.
Nobody believes that we are going to build something great, nobody is even trying. It’s a job, and it pays very well. In fact, the more lost the client, the more money there seems to be for me. How many of us get stuck in places like this?
To be clear, when I say “places like this”, I do not mean a particular shop or project. That would be an excuse. The projects and shops I have ended up in reflect the metaphysical place in am stuck in. My projects reflect my state of mind. What am I going to have to show for this career I have chosen? I got paid for being good at what I do, but I never really achieved anything? It would be unprofessional of me to say anything about my current client, but I am getting very little out my work.
Even as I read about new approaches and technologies, I feel as if we are constantly improving the means to achieve the same ends. In fact, we are improving the means as a substitute for improving the ends. In the absence of something better to do we want to find betters ways of doing the things we have been doing. What has happened to the human imagination that it has given up on greatness and preoccupies itself with finding easier and faster ways to achieve mediocre ends?
Yet, I still have good days. In fact, my misery is more intense when I think about it than when I do to work and write code. Still, it’s a roller coaster ride. Sometimes, I feel that all I have to do is learn how to do this one last thing, or master this one last technique or approach, and I will be ready to contribute something beyond just keeping up with change. Sometimes, I fear I have grown tired of change just as it promises to take us somewhere. Wouldn’t that be something?
Yet, life goes on, and I continue to blog. Perhaps, one day, these feelings will resolve into a meaningful change in my career and work. Let’s keep at it.
Why Aren’t You Writing?
A few people have noticed that I am not blogging much these days. In short, work has been keeping me busy. And, we are moving. Packing and cleaning takes time. My weak heart handles exercise and work very well, but moving boxes just kills me. I experience a deep and enveloping fatigue. Perhaps that would happen any way – it’s hard to know what to attribute to the weak heart.
We also have some personal commitments to keep. Last night, my nephew, Jeremy, graduated from high school. He was the class valedictorian. Great speech, Jeremy! Jeremy also had an outstanding high school career – he is poised to do very well in university if he can keep this up.
Tomorrow, my kids have a little graduation ceremony of their own. Madison will be going into grade 2 next year. It is going fast.
Blogging will become part of my life again, but, time is in short supply. I expect to be writing more about Turbogears in the future – my buddy Scott and I are investing time in a project that depends on Turbogears.
During the summer, I want to bike as much as possible, especially in the Gatineau Hills. I love to cycle, and one of my big concerns when I was first diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy was that I would no longer be able to go on long bike rides.
However, I am convinced that biking is helping to save my life. I feel stronger and better able to perform in other arenas of my life, but biking takes time, too. The kids take time, and they should. My wife and I need time. The new house will take time . . . but, I will blog again.
I Will Never Graduate
As a young person, I was told to study hard, and I would do well. I can also remember that I believed that as I learned, I would become more competent, more able. Learning was supposed to be cumulative – it was supposed to built on itself. My friends graduated from university and went on to careers and stable jobs, or so they expected. The longer they continued in their careers, the more competent and knowledgeable they would become.
This has not been my experience in the field of software. I have grown in personal ways, but a kid coming out of school is learning Ruby On Rails just as I am. Not only am I in a cycle of constant learning, but I am often reading about things just to stay current. Often, I never use or apply these things. Many young people are better than I am in many areas because they acquired their skills in these areas at the same time I did.
There is even a expectation that on older person like me will know less. Most certainly, I am expected to think in stiff and antiquated ways. This puts pressure on me to keep learning to keep working. The pace of learning has never stopped or slowed down for me. It is the same.
This is the one difference between me and some of the younger people I run across. They embrace novelty, and that is their strength. In time, they will have to embrace or cope with change. That will be a different experience for them. Fewer people like rapid and constant change. People cling to their hard won competence and knowledge even as the rest of the world is telling them that it is becoming less relevant. They cling to their status. The pride of the young in their new found skill will be their downfall in these changing times.
I, for one, realize that I will never graduate. I will never arrive. Any status I gain based on expertise will be diminished as soon as the next big thing comes along. As a programmer, unless I create the next superduper programming language, I will never have laurels to rest on. (By the way, Java was the next superdupper programming language. Young people are excited about other languages now.)
On the one hand, this makes life exciting. I take pleasure in the change and the learning. I embrace the enthusiasm of the young. I also take secret pleasure in watching a young whippersnapper turn into a clued-out fuddy duddy, especially if the young whippersnapper has become arrogant. The confidence of youth quickly transforms itself into paternalism and condescension.
I was going to close here, but as soon as I used the word “paternalism” I wanted to find a more gender neutral word. I realized that the word “maternal” has a more positive connotation. Perhaps that is the attitude we need to foster: a maternalism, a nurturing of the young. It is important for older people to pass on what they know about coping with change just as they pass on technical skills. It is important for young people to get over the idea of arriving, or of graduating. The learning may never end. Nor should it.