Day: April 26, 2007

When you said “Yes” to Me

Swami

When you said “Yes” to Me you gave up the right to be like everyone else. That is why you draw experiences to yourself that will cleanse yourself of that which does not fit who you are. Over, and over, again, and again until I make you see that the past no longer works. I challenge you and tempt you every day with your past, so that you may see that the past is ultimate delusion.

When you said “Yes” to Me you gave Me your body, your thoughts, your actions. When they don’t suit the new you, the uncomfortableness is unbearable. It is so EVERY time until you realise this fully; then and only then will you completely give up desire. For this is the only way man will learn. Very seldom does he learn by quiet reminders. Man’s desires and pitfalls are placed there so that I may do my work. When you give up totally, then the temptations will fade. I will never give up on you. Every slip will become harder to bear and less easy to remedy. You will tire of your foolishness because I love you, and whether or not completely aware of it, you did say “Yes”.

— Sathya Sai Baba

Programmer’s block

I am not sure if there it is well known, but I know I am going through it now. I feel like I haven’t been able to write any creative programming solution to a problem off late. Yes, I did code a lot – but none of the stuff was new, creative or challenging. It’s some old solution picked out from my memory and dished out. I am having a terrible phase of programmer’s block. I can’t think of new solutions, new problems. Any time I want to do something cool, I am hindered by my lack of skills. I have some great ideas that can be turned into good sites – but my dwindling skills in ruby on rails is stopping me. Everytime I think of my projects, I think of how I have to finish reading my RoR book.

This lock-in situation is not leading me anywhere. I am kinda blocked and I really don’t know what to do? Yes, ajax is interesting, javascript can be fun, ruby is amazing – but you enjoy them only if you are writing programs that solve real problems not just some hello world program. So, how can I pull my head out of this dirt and get started? What other tools I can use?

Learning is such an impediment sometimes. Right now the thing between me and my projects is lack of skills. I need to work more on building my skills. But when I am still building skills, I am losing interest in the subject. How can I balance the learning of tools and keep my interest in the work? How can I create creative targets for myself and achieve them?

In the book ‘Flow’ – the author mentions key ingredients of getting in flow.

  1. small sequence of tasks leading to a goal
  2. set of rules/principles that contain these tasks
  3. attention & focus on these tasks
  4. skills matching each of these tasks

I have everything except the 4th. Without skills to match my to-do project list, I feel lacking something important. Everything can’t be achieved through trial and error. How do I get over with this block? How?