April 17, 2003

Balance

I try to balance the amount of time that I spend working on a machine and doing regular things in the physical world. I know a lot of people who go to work and write code all day and then come home and log on to online computer games instead of watching TV and then go to sleep.

While I don't think that there is really anything wrong with living in this way, I do think that after living like this for a number of years you can turn into an impatient jerk without realizing it. Computers pretty much do what you want them to; when you move the arrows in a game you walk in that direction always. When you are on a machine it is a constant source of entertainment, knowledge, and excitement depending on what you want to do, how fast you want to do it, etc. The real world isn't like that at all; you aren't the king of the world.

After years of being used to this power at your fingertips you simply get used to it, so when you are standing in line at the DMV, or your wife is trying to calculate the tip at lunch, you freak out and get irritated simply because your impatience has been worn down after years of instance responses.

April 17, 2003 04:16 PM