deus x: Also on the drive home, I was thinking that I'd like to take a break from being a geek and a software architect altogether, and maybe raise sheep and make sweaters for awhile.
I am so with him on that. I have always been a city person, never imagined that I would want to live far from the nearest 24 hour anything. The last years though I've been increasingly dreaming about living far away on some mountainside or by a lake noone else knows about or some such. But I really loathe driving[*], so I am not sure how I would ever get anything to eat (eat the sheep?) and I'd miss my DSL connection and movie fix too much, so here I am...
[*] Really #$%^$ clever that I live in Los Angeles then, is it not?
(photos from Santa Barbara and from the hills above Sunset Plaza in Los Angeles)
high tech is draining. there are too many details. most of the details are too far removed from the human experience, lending a sense of isolation, and unreality.
computers are fantastic tools, and can do a lot of good. i think the key is to use computers for brief amounts of time to accomplish clear goals that make sense in the wider context of things. that way, you might get isolated a bit, but not too much. no need to herd sheep, ask.
the more horizontal tech is really tough. i mean, your solving second or third or fourth order problems...but it's the first order problems that keep you connected.
there is no shame in computing. there is great good to be done in this field, and there is no need to feel bad about it.
and personally, i like water-based activities like sailing. very computer unfriendly. :-)
See, the problem is.. my "real" interests in computers lie somewhere around human-computer interface and computer-mediated communication issues. That is, computers helping people do things, and computers helping people talk to people.
The big problem are all of the little problems that expand in between until you've gotten all wound up in solving a metric ton of esoteric problems that finally might add up to something like something people might use. :)
Then again, I do like playing with the esoteric things. I just wish I were more in research, and less in helping keep a post-dot-com for-profit in profits. :) (Whine whine, at least I have a job, for which I'm most thankful.)
another way to stay sane is to stay removed from those little problems. they are only very little. they have no power over you. they exist apart and below you. keep a sense of perspective - the problems really have no weight. there is metric ton except the one that exists in your mind.