date: Thu 17 Jul 2025 10:10:13 PM PDT subj: computing compulsiveness hurts or heals ------------------------------------------------------------- A never ending monologue: ------------------------- My computing life, these days I can't tell if it hurts or heals. I've talked about burnout quite a bit over the years. I've been working with computers, for a long time now. At this point in my life I can't see any other career for me, so I'm here for better or worse, for as long as I can be. They say when you get burnout you must leave the area you feel burnt out in, or the feeling will never go away. Like the solider on a battlefield; once the solider has burnout they will have it until they step off the battlefield. I can't compare the horror of my burnout to that of a solider, but I can say I feel some sort of pain related to computing. I also can't leave it. I'm compelled to compute. Its in my face on commercials in one way or another, like the add for Dell' AI computer with Intel inside. I look at my babies on the baby monitor, and I know that little device, is a server, probably running Linux of some flavor; it says to me computer,and I want to see how it works in a computing way. I see devices all over the place with the same understanding, they are computers. I have fantasies where I will pile my computing equipment up and get rid of everything. The fantasy passes in a few moments. I also have fantasies where I will learn more about my C64 sitting in my office/lab, but I know I'll only use it to dial up a BBS. Is my computing obsession hurting me or healing me, I can't really tell anymore. I know I don't have an infinite amount of time in my life anymore. Can computing be a joy, a hobby? or is it going to be a drug, or chain to incomplete ideas and projects, a lack of work life balance? How can one have work life balance when computing is your work and life necessities are some dang expensive, while computing is an obsession? I sit sometimes when I have a moment to try and figure out aside from employment, why I compute, and why I like computers. Its been so long now its hard to remember what it is. Like why a person likes the color green so much, they might have had green as their favorite color since they were a child, but as an adult have they thought about why they still like the color green. Did they built their life around their idea of liking the color green? I know I haven't thought about why I like certain colors for so long. I thought about how I like certain music. Last night it was very warm out and I had the windows open, I heard for the second time living here, my neighbors listening to music. I tried to hear what they were listening to and wondered about their choice. I heard a Depeche Mode song. I thought wow, an oldie for a couple so young. Are there other songs they listen to that I know, maybe I could connect with them about? Was it spotify, or a mix. I then thought of how I loved listening to music very loud, so loud I can feel it. I thought one day I would like to do that again, but what would my neighbors think of my song choice, when out blares Descendents album Enjoy!, song Hurtin Crue, Green, or Days of Blood. Only a small group of people like those songs, and feel the power in the feedback laden melody. My father rest is soul had to hear me play that album loudly over and over again. He wasn't a fan of it. He liked good music (to him), like The Rolling Stones, and I can say they made great music. Why I like Hurtin Crue so much I have little explanation other than I listened to it thousands of times as a youth, but why I like the sound I can't say, just like I can't figure out what is the root of why I like computing, or the color orange. Often what we show others of our likes gives those around us a means to define us, and how they decide to relate to us if at all. I'm finding myself trying to figure out how I relate to what I like and why I like it or if I should like it. Over the past five or six years I've started thinking about what I like, or in other terms worry on what I like more and more and as time moves forward more and more seems to be growing. I watch others in the world around me who don't seem to care about a computer. They don't care if it works or doesn't work. A computer to them is similar as scissors to any other person (who isn't a tailor). To a writer the type-writer is a more efficient form of the pen. They can write a book using a pen, but they can work much faster with a type-writer. A person who likes computers what is that? In terms of what I'm about I think something is twisted just a bit. It would be like a writer who only writes books so they can use a type-writer. How many other people have the same compulsion? Why do I have it. As I've tried to explain my computing obsession once. I claimed it was about entering a world where I think I have some level of control. The reasons I think I need the control I probably said, but I'm still contemplating the reason[s] these days. I don't think I'm alone wanting some level of control over what happens in life. I know specifically there is no control over what happens in the world, but the computer creates a very compelling illusion the user has control of the computer, and it may be more than just an illusion, of control. The computer is a device with a set of rules that can be changed by the user, but if the user doesn't change them, those rules will remain. Operating the computer is a place or thing that seems willing to serve its operator/user. If I put a file on some storage media it will be there when I return for it. The game I try to play obeys the rules of itself each time I play it. The computer with its programs a source of entertainment, and exploration, is simple but complicated, Is frustrating and rewarding, and interactive. Above all its usually inviting, and I think this is the tick, a source of its allure. Its like the garden for the mater gardener who seems to control the plants in the garden. The plants grow to meet the will of the gardener. The gardener has no concerns of the weather conditions, and at all times the plants grow an shape to the will an wishes of the master gardener. The master gardener has a lot more to deal with than the computer user, but from an outsider's perspective the master gardener seems to control the garden. The journey of control over the computer comes easier than a master gardener's journey. If someone could trade my knowledge of computers for that of a master gardener for my region I would have no qualms to trade. The garden would become my proverbial computing world. The computer will never say or lead a person to believe: I don't like you. Get out of here. You are not part of this. I don't like you anymore. I hate you. The computer will also never say or lead a person to believe: I love you. I like you. The computer will be like that thing in your pocket that you touch or rub, when you want to know something is there. Its almost like that security blanket a child doesn't want to give up. Usually the designers of the computer and its programs make them in a way to attract and invite a person to to use them. They want to see their creation adopted and enjoyed by others. There are instances where the programs and computers are created as a means of control over the users/people, but nonetheless they are inviting. For me understanding the computer didn't come easy. I put a lot time and effort into learning the computer and many systems of computing. I still put a lot of work into it. Not nearly what I used to when I was younger, but I spend time using them. I think about them, and what ways I will operate them. These days I wonder what does it do for me in a healthy way. Using the computer doesn't really bring connections into my life. Computers are everywhere now, they are like light bulbs in America, light bulbs today where I live don't bring many people together like they did many many years ago. It doesn't make a healthy salad I can feed another person. 99% of the time its me using it and nobody cares what I'm doing on it. Now days I'm not productive in terms of producing things consumable from my work on them. They are everywhere just another day in the norm nobody cares what anyone is doing on computers at a personal level. I mean the neighbors don't ask if you have a computer and what you're doing with it. They assume you have one, and they have one too, and therefore don't take interest in general about computing. Was a seed planted that I must be productive? I remember long ago when I lived with my parents I used the family computer just to play games, or see what it does, or can do. I still like that part of it sometimes, although games seem to want the player to work in some way .. they call it grinding. During work and my education people wanted me to tell them how productive I was, and when I will produce. That wasn't really my way of computing. My way of computing was use the computer to do things, whatever it is do that thing with the computer, and do it as fast as possible to be able to do the next thing. This too was my work ethic, write a program the way I wanted, within the scope of what was desired, and build it as fast as possible. Built a system or systems to do things work needed, and do it as fast as possible. I didn't want to slow down with figuring out milestones or estimating how long it takes to complete a task, that was for other people. Production velocity seemed like another way to make computing, compute by monkeys, and a way to remove creativity. Was progress implanted in me, time is viewed as production vs exploration? Still I don't know should I even write about this publicly trying to figure out what is causing me to want or use a computer, and how if its feeding the sickness inside of me. When did it become more than just a computer or scissors to anyone else? I try to trace back all of it back to the beginnings of my computing. For me the beginning was the C64 (Commodore) at my aunts house. I think that was the start but I'm not sure. I continue to try and trace back why that would have been the beginning, or was it just representing something else, something else the computer is fixing but simultaneously breaking inside of me? I wonder as I watch the men outside where I live build houses and driveways. I've shaken their hand and it feels like I'm shaking the hand of a wood tree, solid, strong, like the hands of my youth when I built houses labored outside. The poison in the computing world is not being able to keep up. If there was still a place for me and that 386dx from all the years to now, the poison in the world would be so much less. The gardener has a choice not to use poison in the garden. The tools the gardener uses fifty years ago still work today, and will a hundred years into the future. A new piece of computing hardware comes out compelling us all to shift to the next computer soon or later. Like the kids on the playground asking why you don't have the latest shoes and you're still wearing those out dated straight leg pants. It would be like your toaster not being able to toast the new bread, and having to buy a new toaster every time they design a new toaster they also make the slots different for the loaves of bread we all eat. Maybe as I grow older and continue to believe I have less connections with others around me my concerns about the things to connect with are more important. and how the things I liked or do don't seem to be the things people will connect with me about, let alone finding anyone around to make such a connection with if they did like the same things. Nobody around seems to take much of an interest in so long its created a behavior of not sharing what I do or like. Long ago when I was young I moved to a different neighborhood. I was in my room with my door closed. My mother had let in a group of boys from my school who lived in the neighborhood in to the house. I was very social back then. One of the boys named Victor, saw my guitar and asked if I know how to play it. I told him no I'm just working on cords. I had a book of cords and I was practicing. He asked if he could try out my guitar. I told him of course. He knew how to play it and asked me if I could do a power cord. I had no idea what a power cord was, but he showed me a two string cord. I had been using two string cords for awhile, but I didn't know they were called power cords. He then showed me how to play Johnny Be Goode. It was such a simple thing to connect over, but it took an in person event in a personal space. After guitar stuff for a short while, we all left to hang out in the neighborhood. We went and climbed onto some roofs and jumped from roof to roof on the duplexes. For several years after I would hang out with these group of boys. Nobody makes these connections like this anymore, or at least not around me. Since computing became a larger part of my life connections like my youth of become less and less frequent. Computing is seems like a soloist activity, like a writer, or a painter. I know there used to be Lan parties where Doom players would gather, but everyone has internet now. Holly hell, what is the point of computing now days? Is it even worth it anymore at my age? We all use computers but if I asked my neighbors how they use theirs would be like asking a person how they use their light bulbs, or their dishwasher. One of my co-workers bought a nice BMW motorcycle. He has all the storage on it, and fancy riding suit. He enjoys going on long rides. He has gone on rides with others too. Such an expensive buy in to connect with others. He seems to really enjoy his motorcycling. I wonder if my computing costs are similar to his motorcycle over a long time period. At least he has gone riding with others. I ride my bicycle regularly, but nobody is riding with me. Cycling too seems to be an semi-expensive activity. Are these things worth it? Well I answer to my cycling, its cheaper than a gym membership. I have to rationalize shtuff sometimes, but can I really do so with computing? I remember working in tech/IT in the NW and the very people around me didn't talk about computing. At the time I had no TV, I only had my computer. I would hear them talk about TV shows, and they would ask me if I had seen the TV shows they watched. I reluctantly told them I don't have a TV. They never talked about computing. It was like this unspoken thing, never talk about computing. Almost as if there was this strange competition to never discuss computing and how it is done. It was like they didn't like being a tech. There was a lot of stigma about being a tech guy, the tech guy, or my tech guy. Like someones pet servant or something. I didn't know what to make of such names. Saturday Night Live really seed the idea of jerk tech people. I never met anyone like the character portrayed on that show. Although only saw clips of it. The people we helped didn't seem to like to discuss tech/computing much either. Just shut up and operate the computer for me, or fix this dang nuisance machine I have so I can get back to business. If you like this stuff you are a loser, un-kept, nerd/geek. Back then nobody wanted to be a nerd/geek. Look at the fucking world now. Sucks the way it became, or lets just say the dang nerds tried to take it over. These are the questions I ask myself but myself doesn't bring the answers, or maybe not the answers I want. Trying out one of the fantasies is an expensive idea. If I piled up all my equipment and sent it away, would I just wind up buy it all back. If I pack it up, which I've done before, the day I unpack it I realize how old and out of date stuff is, and how hard it is to find drivers, and crap to make my equipment work, not to mention how I've lost the familiarity with those older items. Letting go of computing has to be an all in, for if not the time commit to re-initialize becomes very lengthy. I don't know if I have that kind of time anymore. Comes down to be yourself and nobody likes you, be who they want you to be long enough and you don't like yourself, either way it gets confusing after long time of it, confusing enough to not know what you like and if you should like it.