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.