The Zen of Coding

Tao Te Ching, Verse VIII: You Are Already Perfect I can't even start with this one.  Or where to go. It is a classic. It is so beautiful. "The highest good is like water". It is good for all things. "The Highest Good Is Like Water" When I found my passion and life purpose of software engineering, I knew that I had to do it, and I knew that I wanted to be doing it for All Things. Like water I strive to bring good into everything. "In meditation, go deep into the heart" I can't even stress to all of you how much I love meditation. I can't even stress to all of you how peaceful and how happy it makes me feel. In meditation, we simply come back to One. We simply come back to who we are.  We simply come back to what were already were, to who we are all along. And that's it. Meditation is resting in joy, resting in eternal bliss. Meditation is resting in peace and in eternity. Meditation is resting in peaceful eternity. Meditation is resting in l

Tao Te Ching, Verse VII: Through Selfless Action, She Attains Fulfilment "The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead." Slow and steady wins the race. Throughout my coding journey I have always done things gradually but consistently. I have methodically learned every language I ever learned, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript and now I am methodically learning Python too - very methodically indeed, too. I combine Codewars problems, with rigour and thorough analysis, with Codecademy courses - I try and do a 50:50 split (this is in my evenings and on my weekends, in my downtime, on the train, and in moments when I am desperately blocked and cannot proceed at all without help - thank you so much). I was rigorous at all points of my coding journey and always consolidated things: on my blog on linkedin in my 1:1 doc with my manager (I had a learning updates doc for the first four months of learning on the job before bootcamp and I maintained it rigorously ). I guess what I'm trying

Tao Te Ching, Verse VI: Go With The Flow "Use it; it will never fail." I am getting closer and closer to talking about this on my platforms and for some reason it seems that maybe today is the day. I have spent the last 15 years of my life suffering with an extremely debilitating health condition. That's it; the cat's out of the bag. I was expecting to reveal it some day but maybe not like this. I have spent the last 15 years of my life suffering with really serious non-epileptic seizures; they have definitely lessened in recent years and that's why I can work; they have improved dramatically in the last year or so as well and apart from a recent flare up they have been infinitely much, much, much, much better. I don't take anything for granted. I don't take the ability to walk down the street for granted. I don't take the ability to work for granted. I didn't take the ability to study for granted and I probably should continue not to take the abil

Tao Te Ching, Verse V: Hold On To What You Love (in my case it's software engineering) I have been putting this one off four weeks. It's so hard to write about and to apply. But so it is.  I am taking every verse of the Tao Te Ching and applying it to software engineering, this is one of my favourite texts of all time, and software engineering is my deep great passion. I might even do part 2 of this text the "Hua Hu Ching" as well one day. ps. yes I am off sick today.  It's quite hard being off sick with ADHD - it can be really boring. I still want to do what I love. So I am doing some gentle blog posts but no real work work. I might do some Python courses though. What's this verse about then? This is not my favourite translation but this translation is readily available online so yeah there you go I'm using it for this blog. I would say "hold fast to the centre" is a very important thing. Really to me it means holding on to God, and holding on t