Fremus.co.za

Today I was doing some thinking again, about my own personal demons in particular. One of these demons is that I tend to be extremely sceptical of people and 99 times out of a 100 I will have a pre-conceived notion about people, and the notion will manifest itself as my reality, and as we all know your perception is your reality. The manifestation will become a defensive mechanism and being defensive around people may seem to be internalised to yourself but more often than not it will be clear in your body language also. I asked the question on Twitter:

if i dont let my pre conceived notions about people go i guess they wont change in my eyes either. then you are always expecting the worse

To which someone replied:

Very true. But without being naive. That’s the key.

So there is no real perfect answer when you find yourself with a crowd of unfamiliar people – you have to somehow let go of the pre-conceptions on one side but on the other side of it you should never be so naive to think that people will generally accept you the way you are. Just because I am trying hard to fight my own personal demons, it doesnt mean someone else does too. They might think themselves quite perfect even if they build up some pre-conception about people. It is my personal experience that very few people make you feel at ease and totally accept you the way you are. Its a defensive mechanism I guess from their, but also being aware of yourself and the people you surround yourself with is not a bad thing, it just means you are selective and that the people you do end up being comfortable with the most might be long term friends. It also means you have good self awareness (EQ) and that you have some pride and dignity and you are not going to just throw yourself out there and let people take whatever liberties they wish. You do not have to sell yourself to be like the world wants you to be – be who you are first, screw the world.

So back to the question, would you go to a Tweetup? I suppose many have and to them it has been an awesome and enriching experience, but to those that haven’t, would you? I could probably skip a tweetup and not worry about it again, since it has no bearing on the few close friends I have and how they see me. It also has no real bearing on me, I’ll be me long after a Tweetup. On the other hand it could be nice to see what people do around you, maybe someone might be nice, and maybe you end up learning more about yourself. A favourite song of mine has the following lyrics:

Looking at life through a loaded gun
Take your best shot, aim it at the sun
Looking at life through a loaded gun
You’ll know you’ll find…

You’ll find yourself, you’ll find yourself alone
You’ll find yourself, you’ll find yourself alone
You’ll find yourself, you’ll find yourself alone
You’ll find yourself, you’ll find yourself

I cannot go through life looking at it with a loaded gun, because its self destructive. You cannot live in a defensive mindset, because as in rugby you cannot defend and defend and expect to win.

Well personally it means being a serious and totally committed developer. This morning I was writing out parts of a specification and I disciplined myself to cut it up into manageable parts and define as much as I can at once and go back to each bit and break it down a bit further. Once I did that I was able to think about the parts of the specification in isolation and break those parts down into further detail.

By getting a life I actually meant being more disciplined and being totally “there” as in being motivated and driven to achieve and to achieve well, otherwise nothing seems worthwhile. Yesterday I watched a video by John C Maxwell and in it he said that discipline is the bridge between our desires and our accomplishments and I think that is what I meant by “getting a life”. In the video he also mentioned that you cannot get ahead in life one step at a time, because one step does not really take you anywhere. You have to take two steps at a time, knowledge and action, knowledge and action. By getting a life I did not really mean going to clubs or doing less work, I actually meant being more committed in the work.

This is a seemingly trivial question but one that I have been thinking about for a while. Is it possible to come up with a completely generic solution, without having first gone the non-generic route? Let me ask another question. Will the initial stages in any project deliver enough ‘generic-ness‘? The reason I ask and say this is because in my experience a generic system cannot be achieved if you haven’t worked through its non-generic counterpart. Why is it then that we as developers always want to improve and rework our code? Is it because we have had time to think about the solution, creating a better understanding of what problem the solution is trying to solve, and now that a better understanding exists you can look at your code easily and go hmmm, lets rather try this approach and see what happens. I often find myself going through my code trying to explain each line to myself, because in theory you should understand your own code, right? On these odd occasions that I go through my code a few times I do get to see ways of better structuring my code, but it usually couples itself with a better understanding of the business paradigm.

The economic meltdown seems to be hitting South Africa as well. If you think about the trouble General Motors are going through in the USA and how that trouble will spill over to South Africa. I wonder how that impacts web developers or IT professionals?