Austin Kleon lately has written a few pieces on how "you don't need a vision." He makes the case that visions are for things that already exist in the world, where art is the process of creating what doesn't already exist. In response to "Vision is everything:"

...this all sounds very inspiring — it really does pump you up! — but for much of my life, it would have been almost useless advice, because I didn’t really see any of my career coming. There was no clear path back then to where I am now.

It's this way on a project level just as much as it is on a life-sized scale. Many projects don't start with a crystal clear vision of what's going to make it on the page.

Sometimes the wind is in your sails, a vision for the project is so clear that it practically writes itself. Those can be so thrilling!

The only way we get those, in my experience, is with many projects that start in dark caves.

The lights are out and there's little sound.

Perhaps there's a north star, or a breeze indicating a path to follow. So much of the start can be groping in the dark, feeling the walls and floor gently, finding an indication of the way forward.

Dead ends are reached. Steps retraced. Sometimes early, sometimes late.

Sourced Via Kleon on No such thing as waste, Lynda Berry writes about this searching when drawing with four year olds:

I often find drawings begun and then abandoned… Something is not quite right and they need to start over. Then comes the issue of wasting paper. And of finishing what they started. But what if we were…talking about a kid learning to play the trumpet, trying to play a certain note by repeating it… Getting the hang of it, making it natural. Would we say they are easing notes? It took 12 index cards to come to this image.

Projects start here, but I'm finding that even seasons follow this pattern. For me, fall and spring are highly generative times of year, while winter and summer I find myself slowing down. It's applied across the board to software, music, art, and writing.

The challenge is to look at that cavern not as a discouraging block. But as a part of the process.

The predominant culture values linearity, but nature works in seasons and cycles. Overlooking that can make the cave feel never-ending.

Derek Sivers writes about how the two ideas are in contrast in "Explorers Are Bad Leaders:"

Explorers poke through the unknown, experimenting, trying many little dead-ends.

Explorers meander, constantly changing directions based on hunch, mood, and curiosity.

Explorers are hard to follow. It’s better to let them wander alone, then hear their tales...

Leaders are easy to follow. Leaders say, “Here’s where we’re going. Here’s why this will improve your life. Here’s how we’re going to get there. Let’s go.”

...Leaders go in a straight line. Leaders simplify.

Explorers are bad leaders.

Keeping a creative practice is contingent on the extent to which you are comfortable with submerging yourself in the dark time and time again.

Giving up on the search means being closed off to finding the way forward. Returning to the dark, though, means there's a chance of a new path being discovered.

That honestly is what ends up being the fun part of the process. It's an act of discovery when a piece starts to come alive, or when a practice continues to mature and grow after years.

It repeats time and time again. Since, as Gene Wolfe told Neil Gaiman "You never learn how to write a novel, you only learn to write the novel you’re on.”

I love what this means for a creative life. As Kleon put it at the start of this piece, In Free Play, Stephen Nachmanovitch speaks to practice as a means of uncovering oneself over time:

The Western idea of practice is to acquire a skill. It is very much related to our work ethic, which enjoins us to endure struggle or boredom now in return for future rewards. The Eastern idea of practice, on the other hand, is to create the person, or rather to actualize or reveal the complete person who is already there. This is not practice for something, but complete practice, which suffices unto itself. In Zen training they speak of sweeping the floor, or eating, as practice. Walking is practice.

With this piece done, I'll be stepping back into the cavern. Listening for the next indication forward.

Listen on Youtube

Getting back in the saddle on guitar! Been doing studies out of the Berklee Method to become one with the fretboard 🧘

🦊 🌠

Watched Neon Genesis Evangelion the other night. Still thinking about the colors and moods.

This month marks five years since I decided to crack my knuckles and learn JavaScript! I started mostly out of curiosity, partly as a pastime to balance my music teaching job, and eventually to explore a brand new career path.

Now firmly settled into the field, I'm surprised with how much I've learned about myself. Particularly, how I never expected to be doing this kind of work growing up, how it's been even more fulfilling than teaching music, and how well the field supports a life of exploration.

Life Can Only Be Understood Backwards

I'm grateful to have grown up alongside the web. Heck, I was born just a few years before Windows 95!

Now in retrospect, it almost seems inevitable I'd end up in software. But at the time, when I was younger, it was just a fun hobby with infinite ways to play around.

I find myself stunned by how well the timing of my life worked out to bring me here. Firstly, by how open and experimental building online was back in the 90's and 2000's.

Jim Nielsen illustrates this in "Making a Website is for Everyone":

I made my first website as a young teenager because the barrier was so low (and I dropped out of my very first computer science course after the very first class because the barrier seemed so high)... I absolutely love the idea of actively preserving a low barrier to entry for future generations of people.

The web’s low barrier to entry led me to a career that has been a boon for my life. I hope it can do the same for others.

It didn't even take JavaScript to get a website going then! It was accessible and free. Something very down to earth while also being exciting and full of places to explore!

I also lucked out with a tinge of right-place-right-time with my career. I was early on enough in my life a few years ago to take a risk on switching fields. That intersected with a general need in the market for more programmers, regardless of educational background. (I know the past couple of years are an exception to that, but I hold optimism that the pendulum will swing the other way with time.)

My parents didn't know that HTML and CSS would lead to a career. (Somehow music was more promising to all of us??) If anything, sometimes I was told I was spending too much time in front of these dang computers! But, here we are.

To paraphrase Austin Kleon in Steal Like An Artist: Never throw any part of yourself away. I was tempted as a musician to be only a musician, but I kept up with tinkering on computers. I didn't realize that putting together websites for music projects would eventually lead me here.

I suppose it's true! As Kierkegaard puts it, "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

Giving Through Creation

Artist Carolyn Yoo and I are both 32. My favorite line from her 23 lessons upon turning 32 is this one:

Give however you enjoy giving, whether that’s through food, money, knowledge, or presence. All forms of giving have immense value depending on the recipient.

I have the good fortune of knowing many people for whom Service means a direct, one on one connection. Teaching, chiropractic, volunteering.

I've felt at odds for a while. The type of service I give isn't that obvious on the surface. This was especially poignant when I left teaching. How could anything beat shaping the next generation?

However, Carolyn's perspective here mirrors what I've come to find in software. There are some people who's greatest gifts are in engaging with the process of creation and sharing what they make. And hey, wouldn't you know it, that's me!

There are many ways to create things that serve people. What I've found, though, is that software is one of the most well supported, widely appreciated, and broadly impactful mediums to create through. Likely, if this is your chosen field, your gift is in making.

Lead With Curiosity

Software has been one of the most natural things in the world. I'm surprised by how never-ending my curiosity is in the field. With programming, I wake up lead by the call to explore something new. And there's no end to where that road will go.

If there's anything to share at this milestone, I'd share advice that I recently passed on to a friend entering the field. Let curiosity lead the way.

Put yourself in a position where you have a chance to explore broadly and/or deeply. Continually find new things to learn. Once you've learned and made enough, you'll get paid to do it all over again in a new way, all the while helping people solve real problems.

Maybe for you that's in another field! But I'll say that Software is a discipline where the work supports exploration profoundly well.

Here's to many more rotations in the cycle of learning, creating, and serving!