The Author I Have Not Yet Become

From Bricks to Code

Just imagine you had a Lego set, and a spurt of inspiration allowed you to build interesting structures consistently. Taken together, someone might think you had the makings of an architect; providence, or perhaps persuasion, might spur you in that direction.

If you did eventually become an architect, and a successful one at that, you might think your earlier Lego experience was the genesis of your talent, and indicative of it.

My exposure to computer programming and code goes back almost forty years, if I can remember clearly anymore, because dates can become fuzzy. Yet what I got to do and what could be realised were completely different things.

The Elusive Slipstream

I can write code to do utilitarian things, such as administrative activity, converting complex repetitive tasks into structured automation with logging and reporting. However, I have not broken the mould by writing a productivity tool like Microsoft Office, a game, or an app.

The ability to do this is probably there somewhere, but I have not caught the slipstream that eases me into the knowledge that it can be done. I find myself hoping for a Eureka moment that makes the scales fall from my eyes and puts my mental capacity in gear, allowing me to do something that feels extraordinary to me, yet is quite perfunctory to others.

Doubt and the Page

Everyone harbours a modicum of self-doubt in areas where others have seen a scintilla of skill and assumed it is the crack in the doorway to the expression of amazing talent. Indeed, looking at my compendium of almost twenty-three years of blogging, you could conclude that I am a good writer; I am, however, nowhere near where I would consider myself an author.

In considering a return to school, this is one area where I am ready to be taught how to put my thoughts on paper. Not for the blogs, which alone are hard enough, carrying a train of thought through three pages of verbiage with a sense of coherence, but for taking that to a book of 300 pages or more, which looks like comparing a swim to a voyage.

Both are journeys of a kind on water, but the preparation and mode of travel are so totally different that they are not the same. There is writing blogs and there is writing books; I probably have enough material in my blogs to write many books, but I feel overwhelmed at the prospect. I think there is a slipstream of authoring somewhere that I need to catch.

Stories Worth Telling

Over a decade ago, I began writing the elements of a biography, and I would be the first to suggest that we all have stories to tell. I could probably tell the most fascinating story, or the most soporific yarn, of my life, but in either case you would sense the gratitude of privilege, blessing, and hope as the substrate of everything told. None of the first four chapters look like what my blogging prowess would suggest I do so well.

Could I have this story ghostwritten? The idea alone of using another mouthpiece to give my own life story in a second-hand narrative weakens me to total impotence. Where I have not found the impetus to get ahead by myself, I suppose that means I need the education and tutelage to bring that ability and facility to the fore.

If this were to be achieved by pep talk, daring, acknowledgement, or the recognition of what others see as my talents and gifts, I promise you, it would already have been done.

There is the truth and there is reality: even men of great renown have their fears, their misgivings, and their doubts, all part of what makes each of us human and, hopefully, part of the appreciation by others that we are all still a work in progress.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

This Humpty Dumpty does get up

Ambitions live on

If ever I needed to be reminded, I was chasing waterfalls when I should have, for now, stuck to the rivers and lakes that have grounded me after that prostate cancer diagnosis in June last year, I faced a brutal reality on Wednesday night.

Inadvertently, I found myself having completed more than 10,000 steps in the previous six days, not out of deliberate effort, but in the drudgery of everyday events. That realisation on Wednesday indicated I needed just over 5,000 steps to make it 7 days in a row, a feat I have not achieved in quite a long time.

Maybe, make it a charted and timed walk, which records pace, heart rate for intensity, cadence and some other interesting, though mundane data along with the time to recovery. I set out on a route I had not plied in over a year, thinking I would catch the breeze on my walk.

Brought to ground suddenly

I was barely over a kilometre into my walk and out of nowhere, I do not think I tripped, my legs and feet seemed to scatter below my frame, and my brain kindly suggested I was going down. I was soon tumbling down, breaking my fall with my left knee and hands that thankfully had leather gloves on.

There was some momentum in the fall, and I rolled into half the outer lane of a dual carriageway that was not well-lit. I was so fortunate that no cars were coming. I picked myself up, took a few strides and rested on a wall as I caught my breath.

Someone waiting at the bus stop opposite must have seen it because he called from across the road to enquire if I was alright. I could only lift my hand in a gesture towards him.

A fresh whitish knee

A few minutes later, the debate was ongoing in my head about whether to continue or return home, my knee seething with the rage of a graze, my determination was to continue, and so I did to complete 13,408 steps for the day.

When I eventually got to look at my knee, I had revealed almost a square inch of flesh, but not much of a bleed compared to how I did not stop bleeding after I went for blood tests on Tuesday, and my shirt was stained.

There is a lot that I want to do, but I am not where I think I am; certain limitations constrain me even as I defy natural laws to do more than my body seems equipped for currently. The recovery process, as I am gently told by both my body and advisors, will take a while, I need to be patient with myself and adjust my goals within the framework of mental and physical abilities.

I have continued to exceed the 10,000-step goal, while my knee is not healing as fast as I had hoped. Meanwhile, Brian suggests I apply a dash of methylated spirit, considering how he’ll bawl at the application of a denatured and non-alcoholic dressing. Two fingers to my eyes and pointing those fingers at him.

Thought Picnic: In aid of posterity

The absence of skill for success

I spent 6 hours attempting to remediate something I had planned to do for not more than 90 minutes and this was fielding a request for assistance in which I was asked to cast an eye on some activity for its correctness and suitability for the purpose intended and it failed woefully at both.

If my patience was tested, my calmness did little to betray it. Something in my nature demanded the kind of endurance with keeping my counsel in the hope that our engagement which had not fully delivered the outcomes might just bring into focus the functional inadequacies in my quarry and the desire to do better.

Almost hopeless at method

I needed to review the meanings of two words, ineptitude: the lack of ability or skill, and incompetence: the inability to do something successfully. We do have the tendency to conflate the meanings and consider them synonyms, but they are very far apart in terms of context.

My interlocutor had planned to do some things or imagined things had been done and even with following a clear set of instructions failed at implementing what he intended. I could say ineptitude contributed to the inability to use the instruction set and the result was incompetence because whatever he set out to do was not accomplished and he could not understand how and why it was not.

A call upon absent ability

Just to imagine that someone has been bestowed to such responsibility having convinced the unlearned that they are capable and there is no challenging assessment or scrutiny of their abilities apart from the pressing demand to fulfil requirements that within that setting they know can be done but have no wherewithal to achieve.

It is a different thing if, in some way, there was a prospect that growth was possible, but my doubts outweigh my hopes. I am lumbered with a sense of kindness, maybe also of duty to ensure that whoever might replace my friend will not be assessed by the propensity to the maladroit of their predecessor by reason of any form of similarities that might prejudice the process.

The significance of posterity

At one time, I thought I was doing it for him and it might well save his job and lengthen whatever employment contracts he has if he can learn from this, but posterity is of pertinent consequence, the ground we lay determines how we are succeeded and the legacy should be praise at your departure rather than relief that what you have done has not laid the situation to ruin if the opportunity presented itself.

Yet, we have not all been so perfect, we have made errors sometimes too shameful to recall but quite defining of our careers and the determination to better and strive for excellence. It is not a hopeless situation, just one where the prerequisites for hope are not very present.

Blog - Showing courtesy to others' time

Hark! The bleeding obvious

What you already know

Unsurprisingly, I seem to be good at stating the bleeding obvious, usually by example or analogy, maybe crude raconteuring, though, not a skill I would even pretend I possess. As many who read my blog would already know, I am a believer in voices, everyone has a voice, and except if you are an impressionist, you will generally speak in your own voice, except if you are performing.

The ease with which we breath when not belaboured by stress or infirmity is done by our need for the oxygen that is taken from the air breathed in and the need to expel carbon dioxide as we breath out. The pace and rhythm are done and regulated by voluntary and involuntary functions mainly in ourselves except if ventilated.

Where you are already going

For those who journey, they plan a course to a destination, choose their mode of transport and might resourcefully adapt to all sorts of conditions, those they choose or are scheduled, rarely changing course except for distraction, deviation, disturbance or distress, which could within certain situations be ameliorated.

What is within our control we do with much diligence than we acquit ourselves for and when met with obstacles we sometimes find ourselves better prepared for eventualities than we ever thought ourselves equipped for. Invariably, much as we cruelly measure ourselves against unnecessary standards and outmoded goals, we may not be perfect, but we are usually good, quite good enough, yet let the perfect get in the way of the good, and produce nothing. That’s a shame.

For everyone can blog, they have amazing stories to tell, in their own voices, through their own breath, on their own journeys and within the controls they exercise that no one can upend. Need I say more?

The difference in a day

Wanting and wanted

Days when I just feel so tired and I am caught between wanting to sleep or do something else without any persuasion to attend to anything but by the force of will I begin.

Sometimes, it is the dearth of inspiration out of which one would find no persuasion with the risk of thinking you are beginning to fail or do as good as you think you are able to. With the day that is passing bring its own issues some of which at the beginning could have caused stress, you are glad you made something of it.

Maybe also when everything is done, there is a badge as a reward too.

Tackling doubt to stand out

We are not that complete

On my Twitter timeline a few days ago, I saw a message from someone I was following who works in my line of trade and is a respected supporter of our community of technical geeks and tyros.

What he had to say was he had about 12 years of working with a main product that most of us cut our teeth on before it began to diverge and diversify from an on-premise kind of infrastructure to embrace the cloud. I started working on the main product in 1996.

We have both watched the evolution of this product along with cloud integration, the cloud part is now becoming prominent in a co-management co-existence that is it now not enough to have a broader experience without the practised activity in the cloud. What surprised me was his admission that he felt like he was behind left behind by the new developments and so becoming concerned about his future prospects.

Overcoming my doubts

I cannot say I gained any satisfaction from learning that someone I assumed was a consummate Jack of al trades from his mastery of part of the subject felt he was not proficient enough in a developing area. I had recognised my limited exposure in the same area and was working hard at acquiring the skill, understanding, knowledge and insight into the workings and best practices.

If anything, it made me begin to question my doubts in my ability, for as I have been looking for new jobs I have mentally excluded myself from profiles that suggested some knowledge of certain fields when I probably had enough of the requisite understanding and exposure to meet the stated requirements and with the wealth of experience should be able to grow into the role to demonstrate proficiency and acumen to excel in it.

Taking on new bouts

I find that as I rate my competence, I am lacking in confidence to venture out and apply for some roles, thereby limiting my choices towards the opportunities that come my way. I feel like I need some sort of reassurance and advice, maybe even a pep talk, I am not sure. What is clear to me is I probably just have to put myself forward, deal with the rejection if that is the result or rise to challenge if they want to take it further.

I am digging for that resilience from within me to face what is ahead. Even in my doubts, I must fight some bouts.

Thought Picnic: A note of self-encouragement

In a moment of reviewing personal veracity,
When one encounters the doubts of innate capacity,
Within the resources of varied capability,
Always lies amazing ability.

That even in the throes of vulnerability,
Having weathered the onslaught of imbecility,
There is every probability,
Assurance remains of adequate facility,
In that I find agreeability.

When you stand with integrity,
And consider things in tranquillity,
Whatever the fragility,
It cannot temper your agility.

Introspection hones your acuity,
Reveals many a possibility,
Nothing will end in futility,
For we are born for irrepressibility,
In utility is great formidability.

Thought Picnic: #HiddenFigures - Telling uplifting stories

Telling the untold stories

We all have stories, some so ordinary within which are some even quite extraordinary but never gets told. Sometimes, we get to tell our own stories or others honour us with the gift of telling our stories in words better than we can find to tell them.

Watching Hidden Figures at a late night cinema visit yesterday, I got to learn of remarkable women whose contribution to the advancement of space research and science could have been lost, the recognition of which might have been late for those who have already passed on, but there remains one with whom to celebrate.

The lives of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Katherine Goble Johnson would have much resonance with everyone in its uplifting message and achievement.

Give them a foundation

Without making this into a review of the film, there are many strains that one could relate to or take away from the story being told. The fact that in the time of seriously anti-black Jim Crow laws and segregation, parents chose to send their smart female children to school all the way through university to obtain mathematics and engineering degree without them being held back by the need to fulfil traditional role is at least visionary.

In the face of these limitations, the authorities began to realise that the talent pool of Americans extended well beyond the dominant white ruling class and over time created environments for African-Americans to deploy their expertise to the advancement of research, science and technology of their country was the other story that was not as widely reported as the civil rights movement.

Invariably, we cannot all be activists, some have to join the protests and others in their own little way by what they know and what they do are busily pulling down walls and breaking through ceilings out of the recognition of the talents they have that cannot be denied.

When opportunity came

These African-American ladies with mathematics degrees teaching in racially segregated schools from the 1940s gained employment at a number of agencies that predated and morphed into NASA. At the West Area Computers, an all-African-American group of female mathematicians, Dorothy Vaughan became supervisor and with the advent of electronic computers ready to replaced them in their jobs, Dorothy Vaughan pre-empted obsolescence by teaching herself and her staff how to program in FORTRAN and took her team to become the operators of the new IBM computer acquired by NASA. [Dorothy Vaughan – NASA]

This to me was a classic case of someone refused to resign to the onslaught of the machine, but having the foresight to retrain and reskill to take advantage of changes in technology and opportunities.

Mary Jackson went from being a mathematician to being an aeronautical engineer, discovered early for her aptitude, she was co-opted to work with Kazimierz Czarnecki on wind tunnel dynamics and analysis, important for the design of space-going vehicles. To gain an engineering qualification she took her case to court and in a one-on-one conversation with the judge at the bench she made a discussion of firsts to earn the opportunity to attend evening classes and in 1958 became NASA’s first black female engineer. [Mary Jackson – NASA]

When recognition came

Katherine Goble Johnson would have been the main focus of Hidden Figures, but she was not only going to take the glory for herself and ensured that recognition was made of other trailblazers like her who were instrumental to the Americans eventually winning the space race.

She was known as the “Human Computer” whose computational analysis of celestial navigation was of the standard that for the first manned flight into space by John Glenn, he asked for her by name to go over the computer calculations and verify them before taking the flight. He placed his confidence and ultimately the anticipated success of the mission in her.

She suffered bereavement early in her career, with her first husband dying from a brain tumour and leaving her to raise three children. She faced discrimination and belittlement from race and gender perspectives which through the sheer force of both her personality and ability she overcame to the point that she could only be revered and respected.

In recognition of her pioneering work and 33 years of service at the Langley Research Centre, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 from President Barack Obama at the age of 97 and in 2016 the NASA new computer research laboratory was named Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility.

The little events that presage great change

In the film, that lack of coloured toilet facilities in the block where she worked meant she had to take 40-minute toilet breaks to use the segregated toilet over half-a-mile away, the realisation of this situation led to the complete desegregation of the NASA facilities. It became evident that the customs of barring coloureds and women from certain crucial meetings to do with the space race was untenable if progress was to be made. [Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson – NASA]

Margot Lee Shetterly, wrote the book, Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016), whilst she was writing the book, she secured rights for making the book into a film and the film was released just a few months after the book was published to rave reviews.

Like I wrote at the beginning of this blog, these are stories that need to be told about ability, opportunity, life, challenges, successes, recognition and posterity. Telling these stories show us that in the face of great opposition in the social, cultural and traditional space, there is amazing human ingenuity to rise above all obstacles and thrive.

It takes the preparation of the individual through experience, education and belief to seize the opportunity when it comes, great self-esteem when contemned and the support of the certain powerful individuals to bring about lasting change. When those elements connect, history is made.

Hidden Figures is history that needs to be heralded everywhere and I am glad for the opportunity to witness this uplifting tale of triumph amid what for many is the impossible.

Thought Picnic: The anger of dreams in precis

Dream a biggie

Dreams are an interesting window on the subconscious, having the ability to reveal strengths and expose weaknesses.

There are things that can never be done in real life that a person may acquire a Matrix-like simulated reality ability to do with ease, in dreams. Speak languages, do feats of superhuman strength, acquire knowledge, solve problems, all limited by the capacity of the mind for imagination.

Dream a little

However, where weaknesses are exposed, the signs are debilitating, like lights not coming on when the switch is flicked, a slurring of the speech when one is fighting a case or the absence of coordinated strength when flipping out in annoyance or anger.

This apparent weakness usually witnessed by other dramatis personae in the dream is quite humiliating, as actions cannot seem to follow the good intentions. In the mind of the dreamer a sense of futility looms, characteristic of failed ambition and with that, fear might take hold.

It is at this point that the only sensible thing to do is to snap out of that dream, possibly by waking up and reflecting on how there might be another time to be equipped to do better.

Thought Picnic: The power of ownership

By rights

There are times when privilege confers knowledge, opportunity, and ability.

A freedom that accompanies position and status, where right and entitlement comes without needing to ask, and if you do have to ask, every challenge to your status can easily be answered.

This is the best position to be in, because no one can cast you as an interloper or impostor.

To own

Ownership is what puts you in this place, ownership conferred by authority or the law, ownership borne of contractual agreement the places responsibilities on parties concerned, ownership by deed, ownership by recognised achievement or ownership by reason of heredity or somewhat bequeathed.

Yet, there are different levels of ownership, it is then incumbent on owners to know what they own and are entitled to own, and exercise those rights of ownership without fear.

This ownership brings access to information you would otherwise not have, this creates knowledge for seeing and exploiting opportunity which hopefully we should have ability or power realise.

And excel

Ownership is a form of excellence, the impetus to perform, and so we must strive to own situations, circumstances, things, positions, purpose and more.

If we own, we are already in a position to fight and fight to keep that which we own, and prevent it from being taken away from us.

We are driven to invest in and protect what we own more than that which we do not own.

So own the moment and own the time, know the place and know the manner.