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queenluai.
My dad and I went birding in Colorado. Not for long, just for as long as we could sneak away from the family, one hour one evening, when we drove up to a nearby ski resort and tromped through the forest.
There was a path, but I abandoned it because I could hear a hermit thrush singing and I wanted to see it. Hermit thrushes are elusive little birds, prone to hiding in the underbrush. We went deep into the forest; I took a step and got soaked all the way to my calves in mud. Damn, wetland.
Dad and I struggled through the mud for a bit before my dad noticed—there were these slender white flowers that seemed to like water; the mud was deepest where they were, shallowest where they weren't. Sure enough, we wound a far-drier path forward by creeping between patches of white, and just a few minutes later, we came to a clearing and saw the thrush: singing, loud, triumphant, at the very top of a tree where no thrush ever sings from.
ii.
I started writing this because in my mind all my hobbies are the same: programming is music is writing is birding is everything. And I thought I'd come up with some brilliant connection between birding and programming, how they're exactly the same, but I wound up convincing myself it was also, well, everything.
The key to everything—it's so zen-sounding obvious-sounding stupid: awareness. Or rather, observantness. But hear me out; I promise there's not an iota of pseudo-zen in this post. (EDIT: rereading this by the light of not-3am-on-a-work-night, this is a blatant lie and this is all hippie shit but feel free to read anyway!)
iii.
For a while, spurred on by some advice I'd read from a poet, I kept a journal where I recorded five observations every day. No particular restrictions; just five things. Eventually I self-restricted myself to "anything but birds," because I'm always looking at birds; it was trivially easy for me to fill up my five things each day with the particular way a chickadee twitched or a neighborhood crow's latest meal.
So each day I strived to notice five non-bird things, and it felt weird at first—but then it felt so natural that it was a little scary it'd every felt anything but that. How had I gone through so many days without ever noticing the hair color of the person next to me on the bus, the weird ribbing of the overpass I walk under every day, the weird pattern on the busted TV that's been sitting at the curb for a month now? And it's amazing how poetry just falls naturally out of those little fragmented observations.
Ursula Le Guin had similar advice in Steering the Craft. We spend so much time reading in silence that we forget that language is, at its heart, sound; good writing works because it has rhythm and flow and moments where it sings. But luckily, that skill—being able to listen to language—is an easy skill to relearn. Take a passage from a favorite novel and read it aloud. Write your own passage that's meant to be read aloud, then read it aloud, loudly. Notice the way the words scatter and clatter and sing.
iv.
The best master-programmers I know, they can answer every question, including the ones you didn't ask, anticipate problems, intuit the best approach from miles away.
The best journeyman-programmers I know, though, are so good at asking questions. Lots of it is just basic stuff, which is alright, everyone has to learn that—but what sets them apart are the weird questions. The questions that make the master-programmer go "huh, I'm not actually sure how that works, now that you mention it," or "that's a super-tricky thing that took me months to figure out; let me explain it now so you don't waste your time"
They're noticing the tricky bits, squinting hard at details that others would rather skim over. They don't know how to resolve the tricky bits, but that's alright; once they've noticed something strange or problematic, they can always dig in to learn the why and be enlightened. It's hard to help if someone never notices something in the first place.
v.
Once, after a half-day of birding with my Secret Birding Cabal, I sheepishly admitted that I felt exhausted, even though we'd probably only walked three miles.
But one of my companions—one of the sharpest birders I know—agreed immediately. "When you're hiking or something, yeah, that's tiring, but there's a rhythm to it, after a while you're just walking and not really paying attention. But birding—you have to be 'on' the whole time. It's way more tiring."
vi.
See, on some level this sounds absolutely inane, because I'm using the term "observant" to describe so many damn things. Deliberate practice is just being observant. Being a good programmer is just being observant. Writing lively prose is just being observant. Of course these are different things; of course these are absurd equivalencies.
But it's the root skill, I think, just like putting sentences together is the root skill for so many kinds of writing. To me it's one of those things that seems so basic once you say it, but once you say it, it clarifies so much of your thinking.
Meditation—which is a path to awareness, observantness—gets packaged as a religious thing, or as a thing we do to decompress after work, and rarely as the work itself, or integral to all work.
And school is based on achievement, rote, repetition, the quickest route from A to B—because how do you teach "noticing"?
And yet in a way, it's so much more accessible than just achieve more, do more, try more. Do what you're doing, just do it more fully, and such.
vii.
Here's an Ira Glass quote.
What's taste but a word for "noticing more"? Observing more, experiencing more?
viii.
There's this cute programming technique called rubber ducking—basically, you explain whatever problem you're facing aloud to the nearest {stuffed animal, bored coworker, imaginary friend}, and a hilariously high percentage of the time, halfway through your explanation, you'll shout "OH WAIT" and then mutter "omg I forgot to froggle the fizbit with the whiffinator" and scramble off to implement the now totally obvious solution.
The whole process is just getting your thoughts out of your own head so you can actually look at them, listen to them.
ix.
Peregrine falcons—touted in my elementary school science textbook as the fastest bird ever!—are no longer exotic or hard-to-find. They've become urban; if you live in a major American city, there's a good chance they hunt from the tops of downtown skyscrapers, nest on top of apartment complexes.
I love going to neighborhood parks with new birders, because most the time, they've been to those parks many, many times, without realizing how many birds are there. Point out a wood duck to someone who's never seen one before, smack dab in the middle of a lake they know well; watch how their eyes light up.
People spend years going to parks not knowing how many birds are really there. People spend years on the bus without ever noticing the person next to them.
x.
I think I've admired it for a long time, being observant in this way. I want a better word for it. "Analytical" and "intellectual" and "observant" are all close-but-not-quite, but "observant" is the closest. The quality of noticing lots of things and processing them in interesting ways. And I think all my most cherished friends have this quality, in one way or another.
xi.
My dad and I saw a few more birds, that evening in Colorado, and a deer, too. Dad spotted a junco, a woodpecker, in places where I hadn't been paying attention. I got a warbler, a siskin.
As we walked back to the car, dad pondered aloud: "I don't think I would've have noticed those flowers if I hadn't been out looking for birds. When you're looking for birds, you just notice more."
And out spilled this post.
xii, xiii.
I really wanted to make it to thirteen so I'd be making a cute reference.
My dad and I went birding in Colorado. Not for long, just for as long as we could sneak away from the family, one hour one evening, when we drove up to a nearby ski resort and tromped through the forest.
There was a path, but I abandoned it because I could hear a hermit thrush singing and I wanted to see it. Hermit thrushes are elusive little birds, prone to hiding in the underbrush. We went deep into the forest; I took a step and got soaked all the way to my calves in mud. Damn, wetland.
Dad and I struggled through the mud for a bit before my dad noticed—there were these slender white flowers that seemed to like water; the mud was deepest where they were, shallowest where they weren't. Sure enough, we wound a far-drier path forward by creeping between patches of white, and just a few minutes later, we came to a clearing and saw the thrush: singing, loud, triumphant, at the very top of a tree where no thrush ever sings from.
ii.
I started writing this because in my mind all my hobbies are the same: programming is music is writing is birding is everything. And I thought I'd come up with some brilliant connection between birding and programming, how they're exactly the same, but I wound up convincing myself it was also, well, everything.
The key to everything—it's so zen-sounding obvious-sounding stupid: awareness. Or rather, observantness. But hear me out; I promise there's not an iota of pseudo-zen in this post. (EDIT: rereading this by the light of not-3am-on-a-work-night, this is a blatant lie and this is all hippie shit but feel free to read anyway!)
iii.
For a while, spurred on by some advice I'd read from a poet, I kept a journal where I recorded five observations every day. No particular restrictions; just five things. Eventually I self-restricted myself to "anything but birds," because I'm always looking at birds; it was trivially easy for me to fill up my five things each day with the particular way a chickadee twitched or a neighborhood crow's latest meal.
So each day I strived to notice five non-bird things, and it felt weird at first—but then it felt so natural that it was a little scary it'd every felt anything but that. How had I gone through so many days without ever noticing the hair color of the person next to me on the bus, the weird ribbing of the overpass I walk under every day, the weird pattern on the busted TV that's been sitting at the curb for a month now? And it's amazing how poetry just falls naturally out of those little fragmented observations.
Ursula Le Guin had similar advice in Steering the Craft. We spend so much time reading in silence that we forget that language is, at its heart, sound; good writing works because it has rhythm and flow and moments where it sings. But luckily, that skill—being able to listen to language—is an easy skill to relearn. Take a passage from a favorite novel and read it aloud. Write your own passage that's meant to be read aloud, then read it aloud, loudly. Notice the way the words scatter and clatter and sing.
iv.
The best master-programmers I know, they can answer every question, including the ones you didn't ask, anticipate problems, intuit the best approach from miles away.
The best journeyman-programmers I know, though, are so good at asking questions. Lots of it is just basic stuff, which is alright, everyone has to learn that—but what sets them apart are the weird questions. The questions that make the master-programmer go "huh, I'm not actually sure how that works, now that you mention it," or "that's a super-tricky thing that took me months to figure out; let me explain it now so you don't waste your time"
They're noticing the tricky bits, squinting hard at details that others would rather skim over. They don't know how to resolve the tricky bits, but that's alright; once they've noticed something strange or problematic, they can always dig in to learn the why and be enlightened. It's hard to help if someone never notices something in the first place.
v.
Once, after a half-day of birding with my Secret Birding Cabal, I sheepishly admitted that I felt exhausted, even though we'd probably only walked three miles.
But one of my companions—one of the sharpest birders I know—agreed immediately. "When you're hiking or something, yeah, that's tiring, but there's a rhythm to it, after a while you're just walking and not really paying attention. But birding—you have to be 'on' the whole time. It's way more tiring."
vi.
See, on some level this sounds absolutely inane, because I'm using the term "observant" to describe so many damn things. Deliberate practice is just being observant. Being a good programmer is just being observant. Writing lively prose is just being observant. Of course these are different things; of course these are absurd equivalencies.
But it's the root skill, I think, just like putting sentences together is the root skill for so many kinds of writing. To me it's one of those things that seems so basic once you say it, but once you say it, it clarifies so much of your thinking.
Meditation—which is a path to awareness, observantness—gets packaged as a religious thing, or as a thing we do to decompress after work, and rarely as the work itself, or integral to all work.
And school is based on achievement, rote, repetition, the quickest route from A to B—because how do you teach "noticing"?
And yet in a way, it's so much more accessible than just achieve more, do more, try more. Do what you're doing, just do it more fully, and such.
vii.
Here's an Ira Glass quote.
What's taste but a word for "noticing more"? Observing more, experiencing more?
viii.
There's this cute programming technique called rubber ducking—basically, you explain whatever problem you're facing aloud to the nearest {stuffed animal, bored coworker, imaginary friend}, and a hilariously high percentage of the time, halfway through your explanation, you'll shout "OH WAIT" and then mutter "omg I forgot to froggle the fizbit with the whiffinator" and scramble off to implement the now totally obvious solution.
The whole process is just getting your thoughts out of your own head so you can actually look at them, listen to them.
ix.
Peregrine falcons—touted in my elementary school science textbook as the fastest bird ever!—are no longer exotic or hard-to-find. They've become urban; if you live in a major American city, there's a good chance they hunt from the tops of downtown skyscrapers, nest on top of apartment complexes.
I love going to neighborhood parks with new birders, because most the time, they've been to those parks many, many times, without realizing how many birds are there. Point out a wood duck to someone who's never seen one before, smack dab in the middle of a lake they know well; watch how their eyes light up.
People spend years going to parks not knowing how many birds are really there. People spend years on the bus without ever noticing the person next to them.
x.
I think I've admired it for a long time, being observant in this way. I want a better word for it. "Analytical" and "intellectual" and "observant" are all close-but-not-quite, but "observant" is the closest. The quality of noticing lots of things and processing them in interesting ways. And I think all my most cherished friends have this quality, in one way or another.
xi.
My dad and I saw a few more birds, that evening in Colorado, and a deer, too. Dad spotted a junco, a woodpecker, in places where I hadn't been paying attention. I got a warbler, a siskin.
As we walked back to the car, dad pondered aloud: "I don't think I would've have noticed those flowers if I hadn't been out looking for birds. When you're looking for birds, you just notice more."
And out spilled this post.
xii, xiii.
I really wanted to make it to thirteen so I'd be making a cute reference.
no subject
Date: 2016-06-28 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-28 11:39 pm (UTC)I freak out when I get lost because I have no confidence in being able to find my way back, but I do something similar, in that I'll whip out my phone to take a camera at the oddest of times when I think I've spotted something that looks lovely. Sometimes I mourn the fact that I'm on a highway and it's genuinely not safe to try to take a picture.
... Sometimes I try anyway.
no subject
Date: 2016-06-29 01:14 am (UTC)also if i had a dollar for every time i almost caused an accident veering wildly in my car to go look at a bird i'd have a nontrivial number of dollars
no subject
Date: 2016-06-29 03:24 am (UTC)Learning how to look at problems, how to ask questions, is huge. I do this a lot at work - we're doing a lot of corner case programming so I have taken it upon myself as a PERSONAL CHALLENGE to COME UP WITH THE WEIRDEST CORNER CASES because my hand to God the one we don't think of will be the one that's highest priority two days after we deploy. And in some ways, it's incredibly useful that I have a non-technical background (and that I'm a writer): I always ask myself what would make the weirdest story, and it turns out no one thought of that before, but usually agrees we need to account for it.