The Zen of Coding

Tao Te Ching, Verse XIV: Everything That Is Done From Love Is Eternal One of my favourite songs is "invisible string" by Taylor Swift. I feel that way about software engineering and my career. A secret invisible string tying me there and leading me all the way. Because everything I did along the way was so perfect, and I can see it now. Getting led to the hydroelectric dams when I was 15 was so perfect. Doing two masters degrees in renewable energy was so perfect. Taking up coding when I was 28 (or rather, going absolutely mad, and falling in love with it straight away, and committing to it for life within two months) was so perfect. It all led me to where I am: a renewable energy and water tech software engineer. And how proud I am to be here. "An Unbroken Thread Beyond Description" Let me make one thing very clear to you please. My love for software engineering is "an unbroken thread beyond description." My love for software engineering is "withstan...

Interlude: Gold From Straw; Reframing Everything I write this while in a sit down from doing the gardening. 👩‍🌾 ridiculous I know. Today I made my gardening debut. Aged 30.  It’s beautiful. I love it. One of my colleagues refers to himself as “the destroyer” when he deletes lots of code.  This is me when I delete lots of weeds; delete all the overgrown plants; and delete everything that’s blocking the front steps back at home at my house in Luxembourg. A few big realisations happened today.  I have become re-obsessed with Tibet; that obsession is never very far from me thank goodness.  View from where I am sitting right now; front garden.  I am watching a documentary on it for the 6th time but for the first time in the big tv we got during Covid (our old one was tiny and this one is just pretty normal nowadays) and I am re-watching seven years in Tibet and then I started listening to some Tibetan music I was obsessed with while I lived in Liverpool and then ev...

Tao Te Ching, Verse XIII: Doing Software Engineering Because I Love The World So Much "Love the world as yourself; then you'll be able to care for it properly." This is from the Brian Browne Walker translation; and this has been one of my favourite quotes for many, many years. Now that I am in Luxembourg my heart is absolutely filled with love. I love each and every last tree that I see. I love each and every pylon, each and every utility tower. I love each and every utility tower everywhere I go, though. It reminds me of what I know and it makes me feel sure. I am coding in the right discipline for me.  I am coding in the perfect field for me.  Thank you thank you thank you. I am so privileged and so so blessed to be coding in utilities. This is the privilege of my lifetime and I love it with all my heart. I am so lucky and so privileged to be doing this. Thank you. But why stop there. On the way home from the airport I called in at the cafe.  Except that I didn’t; the l...

Tao Te Ching, Verse XII: Find Your Path, Find Your Passion, Follow Your Heart, Follow Your Destiny This verse is basically telling you to look inside of yourself. When I decided to become a software engineer, what did I have? I had so little. At the point of completely making the decision, I had been working in Product for two and a half months. I had written in SQL. Maybe a tiny bit of Ruby. I'm not even sure if I had done Python. But I knew. I knew with all of my heart that this was meant to be; I knew that this was what I was meant to be. I knew that this was what I was meant to be doing. I know with all my heart that I had a life path and that I had a life purpose and that I had a life passion and that I had to follow it. I had so little experience but all the signs were there. I kept bumping into software engineers everywhere. I kept randomly meeting people by random coincidence who were telling me that this was what I was meant to be doing. I couldn't let go of this. I co...

Tao Te Ching XI: We Are Good Enough Just As We Already Are I don't really stop and I know that I should. I try to stop but I can't and besides this blog is "Good For My Self Esteem". And I really need that right now. By God, do I always need that. I really like internet towers and I really like wind farms. When I was 17 I went on a school trip to the South of France, near Spain.  There were so many magical internet towers, high up in the mountains. They might have been phone masts you know.  It's all the same thing to me. Sorry.  I can't really distinguish between them. It feels like the internet towers are all still speaking to me from back there. I love them so so much I love them. What can we learn from this Tao Te Ching's verse? Again this isn't my favourite translation. I believe that it is Brian Browne Walker who said "It is the empty space that makes things liveable." I was exhausted (although I just ate breakfast - at 12 noon in spite...

Tao Te Ching, Verse X: Seeing The Perfection In Absolutely Everything For no specific reason in the world writing this blog improves my self-esteem (which is extremely valuable and extremely rare with neurodivergence). More so than the other two blogs. The other two I do out of love. Love for software engineering, love for the code. This one I do too. But it significantly improves my self esteem. To the point of where I want to keep on doing it. Every day, almost. Ahem. Let's see. Can you cleanse your vision until you can see bliss in every direction? I don't really understand or like this translation. I don't really like it or get it (the one below). I am just using it because it's the most readily available version on the internet - if you are looking for a book do Stephen Mitchell or Brian Browne Walker. Hands down. They are the experts. So I know that one of those two has the line - oh yes and there is the match in below - "Can you cleanse your vision until you...