There are times I’m stuck not knowing what to write about, and resign myself to the possibility that the post may end up being just a single paragraph that I forced myself to write. Then I start writing that paragraph and end up with a few paragraphs, and wonder how I resigned myself to writing just one.
Note to self: next time this happens, read up previous posts and see what comes up (especially since I tend to leave breadcrumbs around).
At times I feel going into Haskell is escapism. Let's stick to it for a week and see where this goes.
My plan for RC was to learn Haskell. I felt a little demotivated on Day 1 and resolved to try it out for at least a week (it's Week 2, I'm still at it). I wondered whether learning Haskell was my form of escapism, since I have a tendency of moving between extremes. Previously I went all out learning about performance. Now I go all out learning about correctness. I start thinking about the possibility of working on correctness. I realize correctness is hard too. Existential crisis on Day 1 of RC.
I quoted Matt Klein previously and I can see parallels here. Soft skills don’t come as naturally for me, so I decide to go hard into technical skills. Hard skills is hard too. It’s a good quote, so I’ll share it again here.
One last thing: don't let anyone tell you that the tech/engineering is the easy part. It's not. It's hard. Soft skills are also hard. It's ALL hard, and both are required to succeed.
It’s common that we swing between extremes. It’s a good thing that we honor the time we have in this world through dedication. However it does get complicated when that dedication itself becomes ingrained in one’s identity in such a way that it’s hard to take an honest look and wonder if we might be doing something for the wrong reasons.
OK not to play therapist here (perhaps a topic for a different day). I did recommend Stutz to a friend recently, and she asked me if it was relatable. I said to watch the first 10 minutes, and if it’s not your thing now but becomes a thing 10 years down the road and you think about watching it again, that 10 minutes would be worth its weight in gold.