What drives you?

Why do you wake up in the morning? why do you brush your teeth?

I’ve asked myself this question many times. More than once? there was no answer. So I didn’t leave my bed. I didn’t brush my teeth. Existence seemed to my active imagination a terribly bothersome load.

Here’s another entry into my diary. It’s been too long since I introspected, let’s look at the past. After all this is my selfish corner of the internet. Why do I have a public dairy? Because you are the other. Whoever you are. You allow me to tell my story, to forge an identity to be a self, to become. So here’s a stab at it. I’m trying to be authentic. Why do I program?

At first, long long ago in the world of 2016, it was because hacking was cool, and I don’t mean hacking in the proper term of the word. What I meant was cracking, what difference did it make to a noob? I played around with javascript and eventually python. I googled how to learn programming in 30 minutes. I wanted to learn and learn quickly so I could “hack” stuff. lolololol

Why? fucking hollywood. It was so fucking cool.

I quit after two or three weeks. It got so difficult, so quickly and I had to study chemical engineering anyway. I put that shit aside and focused on school. That was that. I forgot that hobby like so many others.

Fast forward to 2019.

I pick up programming again. For a very very different reason. I wanted to make money, it was a rational alternative career path. What drove the engine was pure ambition and discipline in my formative months of python syntax. Oh the blasphemy. True programmers are not driven by such “basic” desires. They are passionate. Whatever the fuck that means. They stared at some for loops at 3 years old, saw some BASIC on some ancient ass computer, began to tinker and never looked back. A great desire sparked. It was love at first sight, with IQs > 200 and touch typing at 140wpm these are the stallions.

Oh the horror! how my motives pale from such hackers. I am mediocre, bottom of the barrel. I got access to a computer at 13 or 14. The very first one. It was my mum’s. She wanted to write her phd. Computers were a luxury back then, at least in my family. I tinkered with solitaire, ping pong, Mario, some beach fps I forget the name…I discovered porn and masturbation. Thank God for modems. Computers were cool I guess. Wtf was programming? Shit I didn’t know. There was this weird looking thing, a “terminal” cmd. You could input instructions into it and stuff happened. “Magic”. The task manager shortcut - a black art. It was wonderfully complex. Too complex for my tiny little head.

I was driven to program for the first time in my life seriously in 2019 by ambition and upward social mobility as the sociologists say, but it wasn’t why I kept programming. There’s a little more to this story. Humans are wonderfully complex, I won’t strive for accuracy or consistency but honesty in expression.

Today? It isn’t even the major reason I code.

So I’ll ask you again? Why do you program?

Today? I’m going to code python because I have an assignment that’s due on EdX. I think I’m also going to write ruby and solve an advent of code puzzle. But that’s not a reason is it? why you might ask?

In all honesty? It’s because I believe deep down within me think that if I do these things to the best of my ability? I’ll become a better programmer. I have faith. This isn’t a rational faith, there’s no way to know for certain, that I will afterall become better.

So two questions arise here? What is “better” and why?

Better is simple, write less shitty code than you did 6 months ago. It’s simple. Because let’s be honest, it’s almost 2021 and I have a O(n^3) algorithm on my github. I have mountains of unfinished projects. I don’t know half of the things I want to know. Now the hard part? why would you want to become a better programmer anyway?

Because I want to be successful at this. I wanna make money, but I want to make money because I’m good at what I do. Why do I want money? I want to live. I think. As I see fit. I want to paint my nails or not, I want piercings or not, I want to keep my hair long or not, I want to see the world or not, I want to live free as I see fit until I die. I’d rather not call pieces of shit “sir”. I’d rather not become a shell of myself, fuck happiness, If I wanted that, I’d do drugs. I want to piss away my meaningless existence how I want to. Why? suicide seems boring, and a mediocre life even more so. I don’t think I’ll marry. I don’t think. Kids? I’m not cruel enough to birth more life. The propagation of this curse I leave to others, then how am I to spend my time? pissing away existence. There isn’t much of it anyway. Nothing I do is terribly important.

Another dimension, why did I keep writing code? I haven’t made a dime from this. I’ve been at this for a little bit. One year and five or so months seriously. There was no prize dangling in front of me. On the contrary, it was filled with uncertainty and g_ood reasons_ not to continue to program.

Riddle me this? is faith in I’m going to become a better programmer enough? and consequently will that mean success? Is that enough reason to code? I think not. It’s irrational. It makes no sense, your brain will realize this and you’ll quit, find something more profitable, or simply go through the motions expecting that eventually you’ll reach your goal if enough time passes.

I didn’t like to program, I still don’t for several reasons. It makes me feel stupid, all the time. It doesn’t do what I want it to do. It’s an intrinsically difficult activity. It ruins my posture, it’s ruined my eyes. I don’t see sunlight anymore. It frustrates me to no end. Debugging is just the worst. It feels like you’ve hit a wall you have no idea how to overcome. The compiler is always mean, programming languages are annoying. I don’t have many hobbies that aren’t on the internet. It’s all programming’s fault. It has changed me. I care about weird things. I admire people better than me, I want to be like them, I compete with my peers. I hate ugly code, but I haven’t seen perfect code either. It takes the best of my mental energy. I have no idea how to balance technical books I like with books that I like that are technical in some other field I have interests in. It has consumed me. I think code. I breathe code, and I still suck.

God I suck. It’s shameful.

I hate programming. It’s consumed me, and I like that. I like how much I like this. Which is something I hate about myself now. I know. It’s destroying parts of me. I used to keep count of the hours I spent doing this. I’ve forgotten to keep count. I wake up and code until mental exhaustion sets in and i like this.

I like when the program does what I want it to. I feel something close to a brief ecstasy when I fix a bug. I pride myself on useless things.

I kept programming because it was a center. This was my world. Me. No one else, it was private. It wasn’t about you. It wasn’t about them. Here, I learned more about myself. I learned, I enjoy difficult things. I want to challenge the gods, I like the ultra immersion, I want to say a quiet fuck you to all my shitty lecturers. I really really want to say a quiet fuck you to Nigeria and it’s values. To all of human society and it’s vision of how one should live life.