GVDL paid me one of the best compliments I've had as a writer. It's one of those small things that might make all the difference, just like the suggestion several years ago that I should blog. It won't be forgotten.
And yet he said something equally devastating, but true. He said that my thinking is a work in progress; at least that's what I heard. I have decided not to decide. I'm not on a mission. I just have a direction and I'm not completely convinced and don't particularly need to be ... the word evades me. I need to be right, I just don't always feel like proving it.
So I twittered the fragment that stuck and later began to explain what I meant, which is perfectly apropos. A provocative tweet was enough to satisfy the moment. But now I have to explain. To wit.
What if skilled people are not supposed to think?
Think philosophically is what I mean. What if happiness were only possible from thinking a particular combination of thoughts? What if everybody who has to work for a living and gather skills will never have enough time or discipline to put that combination together in their heads?
I think about this whenever I am between projects. Not having to focus on my clients' system problems allows me to free up some brain space with philosophical stuff like this I am writing. English for people instead of Perl for machines. And I'm trying to get that combination - except that I'm happy as a worker. My career fulfills. In my spare time I shoot and drive on the gaming console and I attempt transcendental inquiry. You can expect many thousands of words.
It's maddening to read F. Scott Fitzgerald and Rudyard Kipling at this late date. I know, I have learned and forgotten a dozen computer languages and in the intellectual meritocracy that is some fraction of American society, I have received my props. No I didn't sell a dot com, but I've learned to be satisfied. Don't we all? It's not that they are so utterly brilliant - well it is, but it's also that I might have saved myself some time. I wonder back and I recall thousands of names in my little black electronic rolodex and I try to guess what I said that let them know I wasn't quite ready.
We only know what we know, and we have to accept what we are. But that leaves open what we might be. If human development 'true happiness', or 'true enlightenment' lies on a path before us, we may not always choose or even see that path. I think maybe we're all too busy to get there.
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