Egocentricity

When I’m thinking about things to say and write, I’m being generative. Everything comes from the same source: A set of beliefs and thought processes that are all roughly consistent. The consequence of this is that the ideas I come up with will magically pass my own sniff test and feel right, because my test for “right” comes from the same corpus–literally–as the ideas being tested. That is a problem.

Protagonists and NPCs

One model of life is to see it as writing a story, and one seeks to write a good story.

Every scene told from my point of view is likely one where I’m the protagonist. It makes everyone else minor characters, “NPCs” in game parlance. They are there to serve my story.
Reimagining scenes such that they are told from someone else’s point of view doesn’t make them the protagonist. The novel “The Spy Who Loved Me” is told from the Bond Girls’ perspective, but Bond is the protagonist.
In every interaction between me and another person, we each have a story. To reify the other people as first-class participants and not just NPCs, I need to ask, “what choice should I make to serve their stiry?
Jokes, banter, and humour are ways people have of reinforcing bonds, not making them. Joiners smell that this is cosplay and are repelled by it.

Interrupting people to tell them I know something about what they are telling me is rude, even if I tell myself I’m sharing something they may find inteersting. If it’s that interesting, I can tell them later. Task: Make a note of when I do this.
Jokes, banter, and humour of any kind on the flightline is succumbing to the thirst. Task: Continue to write them all down, it forces attention and leverages the Hawthorne Effect.
I have the last word more than 50% of the time… Nearly 100% actually. That’s addictive behaviour. Task: After a ping is followed by a pong, be intentional about whether further communication is required, or if I’m just trying to slake the thirst.

It is corrosive to my soul to be competitive as an expression of anger.
It is corrosive to my soul to allow the thirst to currupt my path into a competition.
Taking a step on the path does not entitle me to lecture people about the path. Doing so actually means I have forgotten why the path matters.

If Alice wants quality time but Bob treats it as an act of service, they’re gonna have a bad time.

I can sit in my remorse and regret for what I have done to others.
I can pursue reform
I can try to provide redress (a/k/a “make amends”)
I must not seek to reinvent myself, that reeks of avoiding responsibility for what I have done.
Redemption is not up to me

Maslow’s hierarchy is roughly correct, and thus pursuing self-actualization while the lower levels of motivation are unsound is premature: It becomes performative, a means of denying the reality of my unfulfillment.
I need not be socially-oriented, but I must live in harmony with those around me if I am to have my “belongining and love” motivation fulfilled. Without that, self-actualization is built upon rickety stilts.
I may live with regret and self-criticism for my life’s chocies to date, but I must find self-esteem for who I am today if I am to seek self-actualization. Without that, self-actualization is but a tissue-paper façade over a collapsing house.

Art is not the reproduction of what we see, but the revealing of that which is invisible.

—Paul Klee, as expressed in “BAUHAUS,” by Valentina Grande and Sergio Varbella

Perhaps software development is not the reproduction of what we imagine, but the revealing of what our imagination leads us towards?