de tomKronieken

The more frequent visitors of my blog may have noticed that I've been raving about some itches recently (and even not so recently). While writing all these, I thought I was feeling the constraints of time, being a young dad and all. But this morning, it hit me: I wasn't feeling a shortage of time, I was feeling Waste. Waste of time, yes, but also waste of energy, waste of opportunities, waste of happiness, etc etc.

Let's have a look at the more obvious subjects of my ravings:

1. Traffic jams. They're not only a waste of time, they're also a waste of energy. Instead of being at work in 20 minutes, it takes me 1 hour. That's 40 minutes of my lifetime that basically has disappeared in void. Multiply that by 200 (about the number of days I work a year), and it makes you depressed. Moreover, it's also a waste of energy. While I know it's no use to be mad because the car before me leaves a gap of 100 meters, I can't help myself. Frustration overboiling. The waste of opportunities is pretty obvious (I can use this time for being with Lowie, my son, or Sandra, my girlfriend, or Dora, my cat, or Gonzalez, my PC ;) ) The waste of happiness is a consequence of all of the above.
2. Linux. Well, maybe this is a bit too general. Linux is not a waste of time or anything else, if you want to learn how a computer works (or, as some like to say, how some computers work). However, if you want to learn something else, or just want to get other work done, it gets in your way. What gets in your way, has to be removed. If it's in your way, you'll feel unhappy about it, and no longer consider it as an opportunity but as a waste of time.
3. "Community blockers". I like a good discussion. I enjoy a good discussion. In fact, a good discussion opens your mind, refreshes your view, learns you something. However, I despise a discussion for the sake of discussion. "Here's something I can bitch about, let's do it". This takes away so much time of the people that want to get things done, that they will get unhappy and turn away. And instead of a win-win situation (one offers advice, the other implements it), you now have a loose-loose situation (nothing gets implemented, and there even is nothing to bitch about anymore). For the sake of honesty, I have to admit that I have been tempted to do that in the past. That was before I realized that the people writing and reading those mails were real people. They're not part of your PC, you know, they are real living human beings, with good qualities, sensitive points, and everything else that constitutes a human being. If you think about this right before you press ctrl-enter, you won't press it in many cases. Stefano.
4. Administration. I'm one of those "lazy" guys. If I'm going to program a string-reversion method, I don't think giving my project manager a detailed time planning for it is useful. If people know I'm in the office every day for 7h36m (overtime is not accounted for anyways), I don't know why I have to put that on a piece of paper every month and get it signed three times. If I want to contribute something to the better of the world, I don't know why I have to worry about GPL/APL/license of the day. Administration gets on my nerves. I want to take one step forward, and I have to take 3 others, totally unrelated ones in my view, in order to do so. This is a waste of energy, of time, of happiness, ... well, all the ones I mentioned already :-)
5. NullPointerExceptions. If you're a Java programmer (or any other programmer, for that matter), you know what I'm talking about. Programming is fun. NullPointerExceptions aren't. While they're mostly your own fault, they are frustrating. They get on your nerves. They make you unhappy.

Life is supposed to be about having fun. Each and every point of the above is fun for some people (although I don't know about the traffic jams -- I suppose you have to be a bit masochistic for that). It's fun to learn the ins and outs of your pc. It's fun to have an open discussion with your peers. It's nice to have a clear idea of what you're doing and where you're going. It's fun to spend two weeks working on some code, and then finally have a sprite that moves across your screen. But I seem to have come in a point in my life where the downsides of all of them have become more obvious to me than the upsides. Time to stop moaning, and to find a solution. I have the feeling that the previous switch isn't going to be the only one.

A final note: don't forget that the title of this blog is not "Thought".