Innocence

I have heard many speak of a loss they have suffered.  I do believe that many actually perceive a loss.  However, I do believe that those that lament the passage of innocence are mistaken.

We were ignorant when we first drew breath.  We were ignorant in our youth.  We were ignorant in our adolescence.  There may have been joy in these periods.  I hope very much that these years were filled with joy.  I believe we are born with few instincts.  I believe that for better or worse we are a product of our education.  Totally disconnected from the society at large a child would not survive long.  As we grow and learn from our peers, our elders, and other members of our social groups we become more able to deal with outside forces.

We learn.  We grow.  We become stronger.  We become better.  Now obviously this is not always the case.  By and large, however, as we gain knowledge, we improve.  We leave our ignorance behind.

I am not implying that innocence and ignorance are one in the same.  However, they are connected.  Innocence does not indicate without knowledge but rather without corruption.  Knowledge can often lead to corruption.  We often consider the two more related than they actually are.  We unfortunately teach many children that they are more related than they actually are.

We also teach an equivalency between corruption and a number of other things, most notably sexuality.  I feel we should move away from these destructive equivalencies, but I have written of that before and won't repeat myself at this time.  Instead, I will put forward that the innocence of our youth is a lack of knowledge of corruption.  I do not think this is any true measure of innocence.  If you do not know an act will cause others harm when you first perform the act, you are technically innocent.  It is only after this act, however, that innocence is a useful measure.

I do know of corruption.  I cannot claim I am totally free of it.  I have no interest in being so.  It is my knowledge of corruption that informs my morality.  My past departures from "innocence" have become part of who I am.  The knowledge I gained made me a better person. 

Morality is of no use without temptation.  Innocence that only exists due to ignorance has no value.  I am glad that I shed my "innocence".  It gave me the opportunity to be human.

There will be good days and bad days

I have only vague memories of heartache.  What I remember much more clearly is knowing that you are the source of another's heartache.  I remember the tears in others' eyes...  The tears I caused.  I will never forget those.  In truth, I will not allow myself to do so.

But no life is free from pain.  Well, no life worth living.

We are amazingly resilient creatures by and large.  We are designed to be tempered.  This is much clearer in the physical world.  Our skin forms callouses.  Our muscles tear and are rebuilt stronger than before.  Obviously we are limited, but one of the things that I find beautiful about us is that we keep getting back up.

The psyche has its own injuries.  Its own scars and forms of healing.

I'm going to recall past injuries and the recovery that followed each.  I am going to let time pass.  I'm going to keep getting up.  Some days that is more difficult than others.

What I do

I don't often write about coding.  It takes up a large part of my life.  However, whenever I think about writing regarding code, I consider responses.  Let me state right off-the-bat I currently work in a Microsoft shop.

I have developed an affinity for Microsoft products.  Part of that is simply familiarity.  For over 25 years, I had at least one machine in my possession that had a DOS prompt.  In the last few years, I have come to the conclusion that familiarity is not the only reason for my use of Microsoft platforms.

The truth is that memorizing command line arguments by rote has never been a good approach to interacting with a machine.  It was necessary for decades to do so, but a keyboard is by no means the ideal human interface device any more than punch cards were.

The truth is that graphical user interface became the paradigm in the early 1980's.  It would take another 15 years or so for this to be accepted.  Most levels of abstraction do require overhead but in my experience, the usability increase always outweighs the overhead.  I am a coder but I don't work in assembly nor do I wish to do so.

And so when I interact with a Web server or a database and that interaction relies heavily on text commands or modifying configuration files, I am put off.  The flexibility gained by allowing an end-user to directly configure every aspect of the server is a huge benefit of these platforms.  I will not dispute their popularity nor claim they are in any way deficient.  I do feel that there is a barrier to entry imposed by such platforms.

When I code something that involves a lot of encoding or parsing or file manipulation, I always add a layer of abstraction to it.  I am not claiming that others won't be able to improve on my code.  I will revisit this in the future.  New ideas will come in.  I may not have thought of all the options the first time.  However, in day-to-day use, I don't want to worry about it nor do my colleagues.

I am also put off by costs I consider excessive.  What one considers excessive varies based on not only personal preference but on situation.  I am in general opposed to barriers to entry.

And so I will return to my code.  I will continue to code in a Microsoft shop for now.  I have no intention of changing this.  I will code in other environments when asked but I can't say I have found another environment I prefer.