Day 15: Working Under the Influence

WUI. For those who are working from home, happily signing into remote servers or dropping their work everyday into a shared repository, these people get to do what they want when they want. See previous post.

But is it unethical for someone under these conditions to work as they please?

Put a different way: If I'm drunk at 4pm writing code (or blog posts or writing my current project) I'm not hurting anyone. I'm getting the work done under circumstances that may be completely ideal. I get to bring up my BAC so I can relax, get stuff done, making connects that I might not have made sober. But all in all... is it ethical? moral? is it ok? Whose permission am I seeking? Isn't freedom the ability to make my own calls? to make my own mistakes? And yet here I am wondering about the ethicalness of drinking on the job.

I mean, I write drunk. I'm pretty inebriated right now as I write this. But who can really say that I'm not working my best?

Is that me? Am I the one who can or can't say I'm working my best?

Neil Gaiman (hehe. I get to put his name as a tag now) said that we should do the things that only we can do. ("Make good art.") And I can't help but feel like that's not where I am right now. I feel as if I am selling a lesser version of my creative self. I'm selling the self that can code. Which at the end of the day is the person who can put a logic puzzle together for other people.

I think I need to leave computer science for good.

This isn't a matter of pride or of delusion. This is a matter of finding out if I'm any good. I need to write like my life depended on it. And I can't do that if my life has never depended on it. I always have programming as a fall back. I have the safety net. I need to remove it. Otherwise I'll never know if I'm any good as a writer. I'm not saying this is the best idea. In fact, it will probably be hallmarked as a mistake (ESPECIALLY by my family. God, fuck them.) but it's a mistake I need to make. I can't just sit around wondering what if.

Any sentence that starts with what if can be one of two things: it can be an excuse or a regret.

One should be ignored, the other should be countered with all the fury of a warrior. You can't just sit around and regret everything through life.

It's decided then. I'm gonna finish my contract and get out of computer science. No more code. I just can't do it anymore. It pains me with every step forward.

Life is not meant to be spent behind a screen. It's meant to be spent following a dream.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 10 Minute Story: events on a farm with regards to a storm brewing.

Missy made a loud moo in my general direction. I could swear sometimes she’s smarter than I give her credit, but then she has a vacant stare while she chews on some cud. “Yeap, the storms coming girl. Weather man says it’s gonna be a biggin’ so you’re goin’ into the barn.” Another moo pierces the still air as a small dry wind begins to pick up. I taste and smell the changing humidity. “It’s comin on faster than they said. Come on stupid cow, hurry up and get inside.” I get to pushin’ her and pullin’ on the collar. I try to lead her with some hay or some fruit. She doesn’t budge. “You’re the last one. Don’t you want to join your friends?” After just a few seconds a lightning bolt pierces the sky, one second the sky was slightly cloudy, the next a dark cloud was a few miles from my barn. And then the light from the next bolt sends me to the ground. The sound was so loud I could swear it hit me. But instead I look up and see the roof of the barn has caught fire. The cows start to make a r
Continue... »

Day 19: Killing the Poor to Save the Poor

So I was on Facebook. (I can feel the complete lack of views on this post already.) And I got into words with someone (well.. I wrote the words, they didn't respond back..) about unemployment. The State Governments of a bunch of states have done a lot of things recently to unemployment. Namely, they have mandated that there be restrictions on unemployment based on certain criteria. Some states have reduced the number of weeks that you can receive unemployment. Some have created laws to enforce drug tests on people to receive unemployment. Where I am getting my Info. I... I can't even begin to keep calm about this. Even from a GOP perspective, this is FUBAR. The amount of money that had to be funneled into making these restrictions happen could have been spent trying to make jobs. Or better yet, trying to make peoples lives better on the whole. Instead we get legislation on states trying to diminish the number of people on welfare/unemployment. Hey, I have an idea. If you
Continue... »

Day 13: Writing at Camp

Well. May is over. I tried to write a story a day, but the challenge was a little above me. Ah well. Time to dust off and move on. This month in June I am going to attempt to write another novel as per Camp NaNoWriMo . I succeeded in writing my first (50k word) novel in November and now I'm going to try it again about seven months later. I'm already about a day behind, but I feel like I have a decently interesting story to roll with. That being said... I'm writing in my blog today instead of climb up the word count on the novel. Hm... I think I find the blog an easier writing experience because I'm writing what I see, what I know, what I think, what I feel. It's easy. It's like doodling in the margins of your homework in math class. It's not suppose to mean anything or do anything for you other than to have you use your creativity (the lightning bugs that flare into life on the surface of your brain) instead of using the logic centers. Some people
Continue... »