A thing or two about failure

Oh, hi, hello there. You might have read about a different me a while ago. That hasn't been going so well, so here's a bit about how it went "not well" and why I think it's been that way.

This isn't a post I wanted to write. In fact, I've been putting it off for 2 months now and how these things go it's just been weighing me down. So this post is in-part an exploration of what went wrong and in another part another try to get better.

Before I really start, a thing about failure. Over the last few months I read a lot of stuff, including stuff about failure (1, 2). And I've come to the conclusion that failure is the requirement for learning. I don't think they can exist separately. Because how can you learn something without failure? If you're doing anything interesting, then you're at least in part trying something new. And that includes failure. I don't think of it as solely negative, it's part of the deal. Of course it's depressing to fail again and again, but the important part is to learn something about your mistakes and to not make them again. Learning is failure and then not failing that same way again.

What went wrong?

Many things, let's start with something. First, I think it was too much. Like, way too much. Especially when looking at it up front. Then, I am lazy. This is something I need to do something about (including writing about it). By lazy I mean I've chosen simpler paths, like reading an article about something instead of doing something, but mostly preferring consumption to creation. As a tangent of this, I also realized that I don't know me well enough. I need to be more reflective/conscious about what I am doing and realize when I'm doing stuff "wrong". For example, I would often start trying to do something and then quickly hit a wall. And then, instead of trying to dissolve the wall I would go <C-t>news.yc, you know how it goes? Well, I should automate/combat these things with light-weight technology (so as to not get side-tracked in getting me not-side-tracked). And perhaps the most important thing, I didn't tell anybody about this. Of course I wrote it in here, but let's be honest, noone reads this thing. This has to change. There are (some) people I trust, I can't be the only one suffering this kind of problem. So, let's write some emails, right?

So, the summary after the thinking (sometimes it's better to start this way, because writing it out forces me to explain things better and not to succumb to evils such as elipsis and etc):

What am I going to do?

Try again, of course.

And how exactly? Well, probably not with a list of things to do, but with talking about the things I did, what I didn't accomplish and probably even a bit about what is next. Also, to make this any useful, I'll have to expose me to at least a few people. I can think of a few that might be interested/caring enough, so let's see how that goes.

One thing I wonder about, though. How come that so many people think I am great/good/talented? All they see is glimpses of the stuff I work on, not the failures, not the super-stupid mistakes, not the sometimes week-long blockades to actually work on something, not the failure to think. Why?

What I learned about me

Well, one thing I did know in the past, but just ignored: I am most happy when creating. I doesn't really matter what it is, but creating is important. After I got to write that letter (inspired by a letter by another person), I enjoyed it immensely. Maybe I just like talking about myself, but I like to imagine that I enjoyed writing the letter and caring about that person (like, for real, not in 10-second daydreams. If that worked, I'd have answered the letter pretty quickly).

But the wonderful thing about "creating", is that there is an infinite amount of things and non-things to create. So I can be happy writing code (which is many things by itself), trying to draw something, making music in some way, writing notes/posts/diary entries, but also while doing many other things such as solving mathy problems, thinking about new projects/ideas or teaching. And even that isn't everything, because cooking, writing letters and visiting awesome people is some kind of creation. So many things to make me happy, I "just" have to not give in when it doesn't go so well.

I also really enjoy having ideas, thinking really weird thoughts. And being in the shower is most inspiring. I think that's actually bad, because it means that I don't concentrate/think enough in other places. Relatedly, I also noticed, that going to bed earlier helps, or at least turning the computer off. This gives me time to process what's been going on and not just falling in my bed tired and kind-of sad.

(That "getting off the computer" to make my mind spin a bit and have weird ideas and relax was kind of difficult, especially regarding that I am actually still doing it but it's 00:56 in the morning, so I am massively cheating. But now I am writing this thing, so I consider this a good thing. The thing is I should get off the computer more often. To let my mind go wild regularely because it's fun and because it makes me happier and because I need it. (I promise I go to bed after having written this thing. And I also promise to publish it today, 2013-07-06, so no excuses, right?))

Being more self-aware includes doing things on the spot, resulting in less things to worry about for me. That's not all that suprising, but spelled out and realized it really makes a difference. This means writing letters, emails, posts like this; or applying at university, talking to those wonderful people again; polishing up that little project, closing all the tabs that might have distractions in them (7 currently, 3 of them being talks). These might not seem significant, but doing stuff on the spot helps me by not having to worry about them (which makes me happier and my mind less occupied/more dreamy) and by giving me less opportunities to procrastinate.

So, what did I do after that?

Mh, in april, I think not very much, GitHub activity is mostly this log thing (but that's not much at all).

May? GitHub doesn't know anything about May. Chromium doesn't either, so I guess the sad truth is that I didn't do much at all in May. The throwback of April, more lazyness, feeling bad about April and making me feel even worse by not doing anything in May. May was also not so good at Spreadshirt. I did have a few successes, but only after much head-against-wall and with the knowledge that with a bit of thinking it would have been much better.

June was better. I've updated my dotfiles (including a transition to XMonad, which makes me happier than awesome), wrote a tweetable speed reader bookmarklet and last weekend worked on expandr (a link unshortener in Haskell). I also went to HaL8, a mini conference about Haskell, which was inspiring and humbling and this week made that computers only between 08:00 and 20:00 diet, which had been going well until now, and yesterday I installed a "standing cupboard", which I've been using today and am using now. It's fun, I'll probably try and draw a picture of it. What has been interesting about it was that it prevented much passive surfing because it isn't so comfortable for doing that and because I noticed it quicker (and I could just walk away to drink a cup of tea or think a bit).

So, I think for now it's a bit better. (One thing I also did was try and fail setting up a prgmr account for my own space on the web. GitHub is nice and all, but it still is a little bit limiting for interactive freedom and stuff. So, prgmr didn't quite work out so far, I had lot's of problems with getting DHCP set up so that I could install arch (or anything, for that matter), but failed (not my fault) and didn't do much about it for too long (my fault). But in the end I got it solved (that might be another less-ego-less-weepy post) and installed arch just to learn that the kernel that the internet said would work didn't work after all. So then I gave up with that and by chance came accross DigitalOcean who have an awesome setup workflow and better hardware (where's the bad part, though?), so to finish this paragraph-rant I got set up with them got arch on it and gained my very first public web-server thing (YAY!), hosted my own XMPP server on it and tested that expandr thing on it. Next steps are porting my site over (already there, but there's more to come) and then let's see. Phew, sorry, kind of.)

Mhh. That sounds... better, i guess, but what are you going to do now?

I don't know. I have a few ideas, but what worries me is that these active/failing phases are pretty much that: phases. So far I haven't really been able to control them for an extended amount of time. So, that's one argument for getting a little bit of help.

If you're reading this because I sent you an email, please send me your thoughts about it. About how I am egoistic and stupid, but also about how I can do better and how you still like me a bit. And if you read this all on your own (who ARE you?), drop me an email anyway, if you feel like it.

Best I can say is that I am going again. I don't know where and I don't know when the next apologizing post will come, but I hope it will be sooner and it won't be much apologizing just a thing about learning and stuff like that.

So, bye for now, I think. (These things aren't really "in" these days, are they? I still like to say something to you every once in a while. Makes me feel more like I'm talking to other human beings.)

<3