A combination of almost dying once a year for the past four years and the numerous plot twists my career has taken left me on an island of thought. I was feeling a little stranded on that island, so I branched out of tech. Engineering, in all forms, have always had a… misunderstood place in my heart.
That’s why I had to come back to the physical world and it was jarring to realize how long it had been since I actively paid attention to it outside of being ill in some way. I’ve been doing martial arts for 7 years and the past 4 have been focused more on the martial part and it changes your views on death.
Background rambling to set up the rest
If you saw Art and Tech #1, you already know I’m on this quest to find some kind of creation both inspired by and inspiring of thoughts and feelings. So I’ve started focusing on more non-tech pursuits, heavily. It was sparked by some things happening in my own life, plus the undeniability of AI and how that’s changed programming as a craft.
But I’ve started to reach a higher level in these other expressions and it’s been humbling. Hearing stories of what regular fighters, pilots, and artists have been through are wild. At a certain point though, most of them have a commonality.
True mastery comes from a higher connection
If you learned to hand write each line of code from books, forums, classes, and plain old trial and error, you’ve experienced this connection. We usually call it our flow state.
When you’re done the code you’ve written is not only functional, but also beautiful. You wrote efficient, easy to understand code that also improved the way other devs view the system. It might even take you a few minutes to understand how or what you wrote that.
Of course, it’s from all of your experience and practice, but how did you get in that flow state where the solutions started to reveal themselves to you?
Everything has this state when you reach a certain level in your practice. It’s like anticipating a pothole around the next corner and ajusting for it. Or being able to add just the right amount of salt to a meal. There’s a point where your training is connected in ways you couldn’t have actively thought of until after you experienced it.
There are no shortcuts
I spent 10 years looking for a shortcut to success and the only thing I’ve found that works is you. Everytime I’ve thought I found a shortcut or a cheat code, looking back I realize those were the times I was working the hardest.
Plenty of breakthroughs and “lucky” moments came from that work. I was totally immersed in the study of all things programming and technology from the hardware, product development, leadership, and every branch of discipline under them for 10+ hours a day, almost everyday for 6 years. I jumped down all of the rabbit holes that connected to what I thought was my role.
When I finally came up for air, I understood more than I went in intending to learn. And the rabbit hole is still going. Reaching any point of mastery means you fully know that you’ll never be able to learn everything. But you should know enough to be dangerous.
Everything involves sacrifice
No one has ever achieved greatness without having to give up something great. You can only go as high as what you’re willing to sacrifice. That could be your time, friends, other activities, sleep, or any number of things you enjoy.
You have to maintain the resolve to stick with it and follow through to the end whether it’s painting, writing, coding, manufacturing, or farming. All of it requires discipline to do that thing everyday especially when you don’t feel like it.
When all the crops are infected, the parts haven’t been machined to the right tolerances, or your code was working on staging but it broke in prod, you have to be ready for the stress and the level of expertise it takes to handle it. That’s why you can’t skip the steps in your practice and why the pursuit of mastery means continuous study.
And sacrifice.
All of the successful people I’ve personally talked to and read about across all kinds of professions mention things like these. Honestly, it feels hard to grasp and at the same time easy to live.
But I’m still not sure where this is even going. I guess we’ll find out in time!