Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Plunge
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2014 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
It is easier for me to write a confrontational email in which I will disappoint someone than for me to open up a coding problem that I fear I will fail at. With the former, I know the territory; I know the rhythms of anxiety and release, I know viscerally that this practice will never stop and that I'll just get asymptotically better. With the latter I still obscurely fear some definitive NO telling me I'm no good at this, and I don't quite have enough experience of quietly positive outcomes to salve the scars away.
I draw upon my memories of Hacker School and I remember that growth is change, and I start up the video game music and a task in Project Hamster, and I switch to Emacs.
