There is a common phrase in discrete mathematics textbooks
where they say "prove or disprove the following conjecture."
I think of this when I decide that I am going to work
on an application. I don't know whether my ideas for
apps are any good (so far, none of them have been good).
But I can be motivated to work on them because I can
have the following attitude: demonstrate that this
app is useful, or not useful. This attitude goes a long
way toward destroying nervousness about working on an app.
If you actually go through the trouble of coding up an
app, you can then use it, and decide whether or not you like it.
It's no longer just an idea in your head. It exists in tangible
form. You can see it in Chrome. If you go that far,
you cay say "at least I tried." You've discovered
whether your judgement of what was useful was on point.
You had no idea whether
your app idea was any good. It's even a little sad because
no one was going to try to test its usefulness except
you. It was your idea.
So many business endeavours can be viewed this way: show
that the business works, or does not work.
While this reasoning has its place in my journey
through life, I do not consider it ideal. It is missing
the element of curiosity. Sometimes we make apps
because it is plain as day that they will be successful,
if only someone makes them a reality. Here, the
element of curiousity is present. We are curious to
know whether it does or does not work. We are curious about
how it will feel when the app takes our breath away.
We want to taste the finish line, the success, of the app.
Although it is a stretch to say so, I would claim
that such curiosity stems from the same root motivation
as leads to ambition. If you want to call the desire
to make an obviously useful app real ambition, then
my response is "you say tomato, I say tomahto".
There is a scene in My Neighbor Totoro
where the Dad is seen working inside the house at a desk. He is writing
things down on paper. His daughter is outside playing,
or something. This scene has always made me jealous
of the Dad. He looks peaceful, being at that house in
the countryside, and yet doing paperwork. He doesn't look stressed.
To use the definition of curiosity that everyone agrees on,
I would say that curiosity eliminates financial stress
from product development. Steve Yegge used to say that
working at Google was like being at grad school, and I think
there was a lot of curiosity that motivated the employees
there. Not financial need.
Working in the field of information technology, even without
financial stress, is commonly filled with pain. They came
up with the term "death march" many years ago because
software projects felt doomed very frequently. That pain
becomes a ward that discourages one from embracing
the practice of writing code. It is too bad that this
happens everywhere.
The pain of competing for one's lunch comes from the
general problem of not knowing ourselves. To get to know
yourself, you have to go on a journey of making friends,
talking to them, and growing. You have to confront your
fears by employing courage. If you don't do this,
your won't be able to access pure curiosity whenever
work calls, because your curiosity will have died.
Life without light destroys what little, vulnerable machinery
of curiosity we have in our hearts.
Do you believe me?
I've said this elsewhere, but when my store of courage
is being used, that's when I know my curiosity is
missing. Mattias Johansson used to conclude his programming
YouTube videos by saying "stay curious". If only it were
so easy. Curiosity is the best problem-solver. We call
on courage when our curiosity is absent. And that's
the hard way of doing work.
