Musings on computer stuff, and things... and other stuff.
The product formerly known as VIRL has been rebranded and is slated for release in the first half of 2014. My money is on it being released just prior to, or at, Cisco Live in May. It is an intriguing product that I have had the opportunity to play with for a few months now. If you haven’t read my TechTarget write-up, take a look at it here:
For those of you who understand what Tech Field Day is, and want to follow this week’s events, feel free to use this calendar to track the events.
Lately I have been struggling with career burnout. Or maybe it’s existential grief, or bad burritos, gas, and too many reality television marathon binges. Whatever it is, however, I noted with some interest this article by Matthew Mengel (@mengelm) over on the Packet Pushers website. Matthew is pushing aside his career in the networking industry to pursue his true passion in astronomy, after winning a scholarship to complete a PhD program in the subject.
It is fair to say that I read his article with a fair bit of jealousy. After 22 years in the computer industry, I nurse nightly dreams (or delusions) of moving on to other things. I said as much on Twitter, and found a surprising number of other folks in my cohort who felt the same. Long careers and hours had taken a toll.
More surprising, however, was what happened when the discussion turned to just what exactly we would all do, given the chance. There were a few outliers, but far and away the answers were all in the fine arts or generically creative space: art, film, writing, and woodworking were mentioned. And the number one reason why was that these were all pursuits that were started during the naïveté of youth, before we all realized that the money was no good.
I know that I never dreamed of a career in computers when I was a child. My dreams were all rooted in writing, art, and music. I fully expected to be a musician, famous artist, or reclusive, well-read writer. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
I don’t know when I realized the impracticality of the arts as a career, but at some point in my later high school years I decided that the law would be a more practical profession. Luckily, my uncle (a very successful attorney) talked me out of that, and I accidentally happened into the world of professional computer-wrangling.
I had been programming and hacking since the age of eight, so when someone offered me a job at what seemed like incredible pay back in 1992, I didn’t think twice. In retrospect, it’s amazing how low the asking price for a person’s soul turns out to be. Fast forward to the present, and we’re back to the conversation about burnout and choices.
In talking to the good folks on Twitter, and friends and coworkers, it seems as if there are a tremendous number of people who would do something else, if the money was left out of the equation. One of my best friends and I were talking over the holidays on this very topic, and it seems as if we’re all victims of our own success. “I’d move and change careers, “ he said, “but I can’t afford to start over.”
And there’s the problem. The same problem everything always boils down to: money, or, more realistically, food and shelter. In all of human history, we’re still slaves to our own ability to survive. It used to be a climate, or food-source, or shelter that drove us to wherever we ended up in life. All we’ve done in the whole of our species is manage to abstract that concept in the form of money.
Maybe I’m reading too much in to all of this, or being too dramatic, I don’t know. All I do know is there are a hell of a lot of us out there, it seems, doing things for money that we wish we didn’t have to do any more. I don’t know what that means, and I’m hesitant to project my own anxieties on the rest of you, but I think it at least begs a couple of questions:
(1) If the money was equal to what you do now, or what your career will ultimately bring you in terms of earning potential, would you do something different?
(2) When were you the happiest in your life? What were you doing? Was it what you do now?
Feel free to send me answers and feedback via my twitter handle (@someclown) or here in the comments.
Software Defined Networking Explained:
typedef struct network {
void * stuff
void * moreStuff
}; SDN
So, you want to be a writer?
Writing is a lonely, dirty, self-deprecating affair. And that’s if you’re good at it. Robert Heinlein said that “writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterward.” That feels just about spot-on to me these days, as I fight the blank screen to see who is going to win on any given day. Usually it’s the screen.
When you feel so passionately about anything that you want to take the time and effort to write it down, there is an inevitable comedown. Ostensibly the writing is a cathartic experience and when you’re done, it should be over. You’ve said your piece, made your peace, and should let it rest in peace.
But we’re all just a little narcissistic—writers more so than everyone else—and we crave feedback, validation, if not of our writing skills or our ideas, then at least that we exist somewhere outside of the vacuum of our own thoughts. We want someone to notice and care, even if it is simply to pick a fight or claim that we have no business writing. Writers are used to rejection, so that’s not really a problem. What we’re not used to is silence—at least not at first.
As writers, we spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over our words—the way they flow on the page, or the symmetry of the sentences—and when we’re done we expect a similar level of feedback from whatever audience we may have. Whatever the size of our platform, we expect some level of acknowledgement commensurate with the level of effort we put into the writing, and the fact is that in most cases what we get is the proverbial silence and crickets.
Virginia Woolf said that, “writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.” Once you start selling your soul, you’ve fallen off the precipice into a truly dark place, a place where the explosive mix of creativity and editorial demands collide and ignite like the improbable mix of drunk rodeo clowns and Pamplona—comedic tragedy writ large.
We naturally think our writing is perfect when it’s done, and we expect that at least the one person committed to reading what we write—our erstwhile editor—will see our brilliance and praise us for it. That does happen, but often that very thing we crave comes saddled with requests for changes ranging from small bits of grammar to complete wholesale rewrites. We sacrifice our creativity to feed the beast.
Self-doubt begins to creep into the mix, and the writing becomes harder and more painful, the page more menacing, and the anxiety of deadlines more prescient—creeping in even before we’ve accepted a new assignment. The work we do submit can take weeks or months to get published, and just as long to be paid for. And if you dabble in the dirty art of essay writing, you begin to find that your opinion has oftentimes radically changed by the time your words show up to be read, and you find yourself arguing on behalf of a point you no longer agree with.
Yes, writing is a dirty, sordid affair. It’s a back-alley rendezvous with something or someone you shouldn’t be involved with. But for those of us who write, it’s also unavoidable. It becomes something we absolutely have to do to feel alive—something we can’t stop doing any more than willing ourselves not to breathe.
If you want to be a writer, then write. Just don’t expect it to offer anything to you but therapy—an outlet for your own needs that likely will grow more desperate as a result. Writing makes no promises, and delivers no boons. But even after all of that, for me, I will always be a writer. But I will do it in private, and I will wash my hands afterward.
A few people you might recognize, including yours truly, are featured here in a video for Cisco Live. This was shot at Cisco Live in Orlando back in June. I’ll see you all next year in San Francisco!