What Interest Me This Week

Working through shell shock

The business of making software has to do with planting bonsai and producing decades-long TV shows. It's only finished when all users are dead.

That's why making throw-away software like ad agencies do are soul crushing. And games are a different breed of software-art that that come with an end-state rarely found elsewhere. But that's another story.

Point is after being immerse long enough, it's a matter of time before you run into a part of the project so bad you came away shell shocked.

The state of shell-shocked leaves you unable to conjure up better ideas, when objectively it isn't that daunting to begin with.

This problem is purely psychological easily mistaken for an engineering challenge. Mental blocks left behind debilitates you even when they've long expired.

My interest here is how best to get over a shell-shock, how to see an old turn in a new way.

My hunch is being forgetful helps, but it ain't easy when it's your own code you're staring at, constantly snapping you back to the old mental state, convincing you why the old way works better.

Wisdom to know the difference

This piece reminded me how much the grammar of Christian civilization aims to change the world rather than yielding to it.

The notion of what is changeable leads to this prayer no one dislikes.

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

Wanting to change the unchangeable is a major source of suffering for great many.

In the East though, deep rooted mental models however has a strange ability of yielding to luck, yet still proactive enough to not surrender to nihilism.

In Eastern mental models, there's a distinction between luck and fortune. One of them is within your control.

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