[leothekim]

So this guy:

- Changed his major overnight from whatever it was to computer science after writing a Hello, World program

- Left "so-called higher education" to work at a real-life job "without even thinking about it twice"

- Quit real-life job to be a bartender and chef

- Quit doing that after getting girlfriend pregnant to 'go back to the "real world" to get a job'

- Quit that to build a house and work on a farm

Every life event he describes here is a movement to extremes out of frustration or anxiety from what he was currently doing. I'm sure there's much more to this story, but if anything, this is an example of how peace of mind can't be found on either ends of a see-saw.

[jakejake]

I think this is the result of the relative ease of getting programming work and good salaries. It attracts a lot of people who are not really in it for the love. Some of those people are going to feel like their soul is being sucked out. This guy is one of them which explains his extreme reactions.

I personally would rather work at the shittiest programming job than go out and work on a farm. But that's just me.

[jofer]

While I agree that programming attracts a lot of people that aren't in it for the love of the craft, I disagree with most of your sentiment. I see a creative person who struggles with having to focus on someone else's agenda.

Most non-developers see programming as tedious, mind-numbing work that involves zero creativity.

Most people who have never worked on a small farm or built a table/shed/house/whatever think of the manual labor as tedious, mind-numbing work that involves zero creativity.

Both working on a farm and programming are surprisingly creative professions. I grew up on a farm, and farming requires a love of creating and building and an incredible amount of creativity. ("Big agriculture" is a bit different. I'm referring mostly to single-family operations, though many of those are quite large.)

In both, you have to love building things from the ground up. You have to be willing to get your hands dirty and put up with occasional tedium, be it fixing a particularly annoying corner-case or riding a tractor for 12 hours.

In both, you have to solve complex problems with limited resources under time pressure. (The things I've seen my grandfather fabricate or fix with random broken junk and an arc welder are simply mind-blowing.)

Most farmers I know embody the "hacker culture" more than most self-proclaimed "hackers" I know.

I'd argue that going back and forth is less of an extreme than you'd think.

[Kurtz79]

"I see a creative person who struggles with having to focus on someone else's agenda."

But if he loved/liked programming and the problem is just not working on something of his liking, nothing prevents him from either finding another more endearing programming job or working on his own thing.

I believe the parent spot-on: not everyone is into programming because it is his/her own calling in life, for many people it's just a mean to an end (making a living) which has the benefit of being somewhat more creative and commanding an higher pay than many other jobs.

And by all means, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, it is clear that the blogger was unhappy with his life (while he was clearly happy when doing something else rather than programming in the past), so it wasn't his thing really, I wish him all the best with his new adventure.

[AnonJ]

Yeah exactly. The post was quite crude and I can't see a passionate, career-savvy programmer in it. I guess the most important value of the post is to open up our eyes to those colleagues who aren't into the trade with a true love for programming. Their mindset would be something quite hard to comprehend were we using only our own perspectives.

[capisce]

> nothing prevents him from either finding another more endearing programming job or working on his own thing.

Risk and lack of a safety net prevents people from working on their own thing.

[jakejake]

That is true, but the author definitely took a giant leap to leave the field of programming - twice. Getting another programming job would have been a substantially less risky jump.

[m_coder]

I have said for a long time that my dad (who was a farmer) taught me to "hack" long before I began programming. The capacity to persist in the face of seemingly impossible situations is very valuable in both fields.

[drzaiusapelord]

>Both working on a farm and programming are surprisingly creative professions.

For all the shit rural culture gets around here, I'm usually impressed by the ingenuity of its homegrown hacker-like culture. I sometimes get frustrated with my overly automated urban life. Apartment/condo living with a low maintenance car/appliances/technology and a worklife where I'm shuttled to and from via public transportation doesn't leave a lot of room for fun little hacks or impromptu solutions. The room that's left is often trivial gimmicks like tying something to tasker or messing around with whatever platform or language is hot right now.

Then I bought a fixer-upper house. As frustrating as this can be sometimes, there's just a great rewarding feeling of learning new things, fixing things, adding value to your home, etc. Real life hacking that isn't servos or screens is surprisingly rewarding. A small farm must be this x100.

[agentultra]

I bought a century-old house and have already learned tiling and simple plumbing jobs with ABS. It has already infected my brain so much that when I need a break I can go to my basement and flip on my wood lathe and make a new pen or something when I get frustrated. Then I can come back and solve my computing problem with a clear mind.

As much as I love programming sometimes it's play that's most important. You need to gather fresh ideas from the world around you. It can be isolating to be stuck in the rut of progress and innovation that is so endemic to our culture. Learning to fix, build, and create things that I depend on is worth investing in; even if it doing so isn't rational.

I could have simply called a contractor to re-tile my floor and they probably would have done it in less time and for less money than it cost me to take the time off work and do it myself. But I learned how to do it on my own. It hurt, it took a long time, I screwed up a bunch. But I walk on that floor everyday and my family loves it. It makes me proud and happy and I think I did a fairly good job. It'll last for decades. The code I wrote last week will probably not even compile in a decade.

[klibertp]

> there's just a great rewarding feeling of learning new things, fixing things,

You don't need to live anywhere special to do this. It's easy. Just fix it if something breaks. Try to make things instead of going out to buy them. It's not even always cheaper to do this, and the effects are certainly less polished than what you can buy (it gets better over time), but the feeling that you did something real is very worthwhile.

I'm living in a tiny apartment and I gathered some tools like this: http://www.dremel.com/en-us/Tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=... for working with small pieces of wood, leather, metal and glass. Good tools are very important, you don't want to be fighting with your tool when making something, it's frustrating. I made something like this: http://i00.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/2042435968_5/Electronic-C... out of an old leather belt, fixed a few bedside lamps and some flashlights and built a bedside table, among other things. It took me from one week to one month to make them, in contrast to going out and buying them in 30 minutes tops. But I learned many useful skills, and - in some instances - made things much better suited to my tastes than any mass produced equivalent.

It's like Linux or Mac OS thing: if you want your computer to just work, go with the latter, but if you want to decide yourself how most of your computer works you need Linux. Needless to say I'm using Linux wherever I can :)

[jakejake]

I've bought two fix-er-up houses now. I've always been pretty hands-on with building things. However as patient and diligent as I am building software, I found that I just didn't have the same mentality when it came to fixing my house. Breaking my back while trying to sand drywall seams on the ceiling was just utterly tedious to me and I found myself doing shoddy work. After finishing one room I realized that I just don't have it in me and hired out the rest of the work.

With software I just seem to have patience and enjoy getting every little detail right. So I feel like it's been the right path for me, I've never really felt any urge whatsoever to switch careers.

[bkjelden]

I recently moved from a rural/small city area to a major urban area.

One of the most striking differences to me has been how many more abstractions there are for people living in a city - and as a result, how much less those people know about their surroundings.

[br3w5]

And just not spending enough time in free outdoor spaces...and I'm not talking about contrived "urban spaces"

[jakejake]

I didn't intend any disrespect to farming. Rather, just for me, I love programming so much more than doing other kinds of work.

I have in the past worked in the most corporate programming environments writing insurance processing systems. Even within those parameters there were all kinds of adventures and problems to solve. Perhaps I wasn't in control of the "grand vision" of the company, but I was solving the little problems that pertained to my assignments. I found the possibility for immense creativity even in these supposedly mundane programming tasks.

I don't say this to blow my own horn or anything but I feel like programmers who truly, truly love it - it's almost irrelevant what project they are working on.

[mercer]

>I don't say this to blow my own horn or anything but I feel like programmers who truly, truly love it - it's almost irrelevant what project they are working on.

I think that's only partly true. I absolute love programming, and as a result, yes, I have been able to find enjoyment in even the most pointless projects.

And yet, over time, that's not enough for me. For some reason I just cannot help but feel worse and worse eventually when I get the impression that my work has no 'higher' purpose (by whatever definition of 'higher' I employ).

Perhaps this is because I grew up with parents and in environments that were very idealism-driven. Perhaps it's personality. I'm not sure. But with any 'pointless' work I always reach a point where I can fully enjoy much of my day, but I feel drained and a bit depressed at the end of it.

I could see how a programmer who truly loves programming, and nothing else, might feel the way you describe though.

[bkjelden]

Many of the happiest and hardest working people I know are farmers.

Autonomy, mastery, purpose - family farmers have all three of those.

[magic_beans]

Wow... this has the makings of a wonderful essay. :)

[untog]

Man, I love programming but there are times after sitting at a desk for seven hours then spending another hour at the gym to get exercise that I feel like modern life makes no damn sense. It's moments like these that the idea of working on a farm, doing something real with my hands, sounds really great.

But who am I kidding.

[jerf]

You may want to consider "life-hacking" your exercise routine. There's a lot of evidence coming in lately that suggests that an hour is far more time than you need to be spending for health, if you do different things.

(I'm not in love with using the term life-hacking, but, alas, it really is the best fit for the concept in question. Still, it need not be done as a fad or because it is "cool" in a certain set... it can simply be a useful way of improving yourself.)

[leppr]

So much this. Sometimes little life hacks can have big (positive!) consequences.

For example, two weeks ago I picked up the muscle-a-day routine and already I'm feeling way more focused and energized. The concept is very simple, today is butt-day so any time I'm not thinking about anything in particular I contract my glutes. It's really a fantastic concentration and fitness exercise that keeps you focused until the end of the day when your attention begins to drift, and restores the balance between your over-stressed mind and under-utilized body.

[untog]

I know there's more I can do, but that's sort of besides the point. The mere fact that I need to 'hack' my life seems like an indicator that something is wrong.

[jerf]

My point is that there's actually probably less you can do to obtain similar results.

And part of my point was not to let the terminology stop you too much. I don't know a great word for the concept that doesn't have trendiness (the most obvious, mere "self-improvement" or "self-help", has its own baggage!), but the fact it's got a silly word in it doesn't mean it's a bad idea, nor does the fact some people go way overboard with it show it's a bad idea.

[secstate]

I couldn't agree more. As I was reading this post I was really trying to sympathize with the author's trouble of finding contentment in his work. But as a software dev who's very nearly a "code monkey" in his 40 hours, I also live in a rural setting where my wife and I raise heritage hogs for pork.

I also find time to volunteer with the local Code for America brigade and interface with folks in the government and non-profit area on a regular basis. My son and I also go up to a hacker club in the city where folks are always building something cool.

Perhaps rather than monoculturing your life, the lesson here is to diversify on a daily basis?

[aaron_m04]

That's a good lesson, but putting it into practice requires a job where you are not pressured to work 10-12 hour days and weekends.

[benologist]

Programming is the next manual labor and like all the other manual labor that preceded it most people don't need to be deeply passionate about their role in the assembly line. Like current manual labor it will generally not be considered skilled work, even though it is now.

[polynomial]

This is a bold if not entirely surprising prediction. Would love to see some citations both supporting and countering.

[benologist]

When we talk about driverless cars replacing taxis we really mean programmers replacing taxi drivers in aggregate. The cars are a constant, if you're responsible for a fleet of them you are just a better taxi driver.

[sah2ed]

Such programmers will rely heavily on automated tools and will have to follow a clearly defined process because driverless cars will always involve human life. The cost of a simple misconfiguration is extremely high.

Besides, I fail to see how this can be considered manual labor or even the possibility of allowing average programmers to fill such positions.

[benologist]

We are the elite right now, our skillset is hard and the work we do is hard and we don't want to believe everyone can do it. Definitely not "average programmers" as you mention!

And maybe we have a little while longer to be the elite, but already children can build websites and applications so our days are numbered, soon everybody can know what we know and do what we do and as you mention, tools will be better as well and that empowers them to be closer to us too.

It takes a bunch of programmers to keep a fleet of servers running, vehicles will be maintained by programmers too, but it takes less programmers and less good programmers with every advance we make.

[polynomial]

This going to make the determination of responsibility in the case of an accident much more complicated.

[Retra]

The concept of manual labor is not a proxy for "a person does it." The contrast to manual labor is social labor. Programming is almost entirely concerned with the mastery of language and communication.

There's almost nothing manual about it: you just dictate actions to others (people or machines.)

[benologist]

Manual labor is exactly "a person does it", with no assumptions made on the skills or ability required to do "it".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_labour

[Retra]

Then all work is manual labor and it's a meaningless term.

>manual work is physical work done by people, most especially in contrast to that done by machines, and also to that done by working animals.

Here, inconveniently, "physical" is left undefined. And in fact, it's being used to mean "non-linguistic/non-social."

[benologist]

It just means you are physically required to perform the operation - work that is automated is not physically done by anyone, and where it gets confusing is we both provide the automation yet are required to keep it running.

Heroku and other PaaS systems eliminate server administration and scaling for many companies. That same work is still fundamental and critical for organizations like Amazon. But it is really just an inefficiency we are learning how to automate completely, with manual labor in the interim.

[thebouv]

I wonder if he'll post a follow-up blog where he bounces back yet again to programming when he realizes how back-breaking, if not soul-sucking, farming is.

Or maybe he'll start blogging about and writing software for small family farming? There's an audience for it so maybe he can find the middle of that see-saw?

[maratd]

> if anything, this is an example of how peace of mind can't be found on either ends of a see-saw

Well, there are different personality types out there. This may be "peace of mind" for him.

Personally, I split my time between the "real world" and getting my "hands dirty". I think it's important to have both at the same time, so you don't end up see-sawing between the two.

[leothekim]

> Well, there are different personality types out there. This may be "peace of mind" for him.

I'd agree with this if he didn't sound so reactionary. Leaving a software job to work on a farm is great if you're making a deliberate choice from a solid mental state. He makes it sound like he's doing this (and every other choice he described) because he'd otherwise be going out of his mind. It's disturbing to read in a way because he doesn't sound like he has full agency over his current decision.

[ky3]

he doesn't sound like he has full agency over his current decision.

There's a finished sheen to his prose, so I give him the benefit of doubt that he's merely caricaturizing his situation. Actual life stories are quite dull, you know, as opposed to say, the movies.

And on the topic of differing sensibilities, it's curious that you find it "disturbing to read." We are left wondering why.

[leothekim]

If he's caricaturizing himself on his own web site like this, then it's absolutely disturbing.

It's disturbing to me that, in abandoning his current reality to embrace a new one, he idealizes his next step in a way that repeats a pattern of psychosis. It's not at all clear he is actually in reality in moving to his next decision.

It'd be far less disturbing if he were listing his reasons as "I've been looking forward to doing this for a long time, and this is fulfilling a lifelong dream" or "I've been talking with my wife and kids, and we can't wait..." or "This is going to be hard, but we're giving it a go...", i.e. reasons that connect with his current reality instead of running away from it.

Instead, he demonizes his current life and, to reconcile "a new fire inside of me that I can’t hold back", he characterizes his decision as "A journey with a larger purpose. A journey that will feed me in ways money cannot. A journey that will breed true Life." These are ego-driven, black-and-white, rhetorical reasons. Nothing about his next move guaranteeing any of what he's hoping for. And this time, he's bringing his children along with him.

[yuncun]

You're right to feel disturbed, but I think his post is pretty embellished. He might have a list of reasons tucked away elsewhere that is more level-headed than the poetic version we are reading. Normal people don't want to read the story of the family man who made level-headed retirement decisions.

[danneu]

There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself — not just sometimes, but always.

When he was in school he longed to be out, and when he was out he longed to be in. On the way he thought about coming home, and coming home he thought about going. Wherever he was he wished he were somewhere else, and when he got there he wondered why he'd bothered. Nothing really interested him — least of all the things that should have.

— The Phantom Toolbooth

[ripb]

>Every life event he describes here is a movement to extremes out of frustration or anxiety from what he was currently doing. I'm sure there's much more to this story, but if anything, this is an example of how peace of mind can't be found on either ends of a see-saw.

He has balls, I'll give him that, and I don't see any problem with changing things - even very large things like ones career - in order to find what makes you happy and makes your life feel fulfilling.

I'm finding that I don't have that in me. The thought of leaving a well paid, comfortable and regularly challenging job in software development, even if it's not the passion that fuels life for me personally, for a future of uncertainty is far too daunting for me to take action and "try something new".

Maybe that's deeply seated in how I perceive myself and others to judge those who do try, and sometimes fail at trying, their hand at other things along the way? I don't know, but at this point in life I commend anyone who tries to break the mold we've been pretty much set into since we were teenagers.

[grimmdude]

Of course, life is an ever changing thing. I don't suppose you've kept the same job for your whole life? Even the things you love can become a chore. I completely sympathize with this guy and applaud him for making changes he feels will make his existence more full. Grass is always greener can be one way of looking at this, another way is that he's LIVING HIS LIFE.

[jrochkind1]

Perhaps peace of mind can't be found by making the "right decisions" at all, but only by learning to find peace of mind in your circumstances, and not being afraid of change. This guy sounds like he's doing okay.

[heurist]

I'd think of it more as a binary search. Big jumps first, small jumps when you're honing in on something that works.

[kleer001]

thanks for saving me from reading this article, the author sounds like a waffly idiot

[nether]

Reminds me of the people who "chuck it all" and travel the world for a year or two, then return home to find everything the same, as if they had never left.