[Confusing] Jack of All Trades, Master of None
I just spent the $20 to renew a .me domain name until 2020. I know that anywhere else I could probably get it for <$10 with the GitHub student developer pack. I miss the days when I was a developer and really knew what I was doing. I would use linux on my primary desktop and navigated using terminals instead of GUIs. I had to refresh myself to make a script that ran a few commands on my Mac to copy highlighted text from my kindle to my Mac. I think it was only three lines. cp /Volumes/Kindle/notes.txt... ~/source; rm /Volumes/Kindle/mike\ chase's\ crap.txt; touch /Volumes/Kindle/whatever.txt. I should've spent more time on it so I could import it right into Ulysses all in one click that I mapped to my touch bar. I did a google search, but for complicated reasons, I couldn't get it to work.
But that isn't the point of this. I don't what the point is yet to be honest. One point is that I now value my time at more than $5/hr assuming it would probably take me three hours to figure out how to transfer my domain somewhere else, renew my GitHub student pack, and do a bunch of other shenanigans to get Blogger to work with a domain not run by Google Domains. Google makes it really easy. I miss the days when I had the time to make a digital oceans server for like $4/month, get ubuntu installed or something, spend 5 hours learning how to use the linux terminal to install some free web server software where I'd fail so much until I eventually accessed whatthehellamidoing.me/helloworld.html.
What I miss more is the brilliant people I would get to work with to make this happen. Clayton completed an internship at Amazon a few months back. Pla, before he focused more on lighting, had several servers in his basement that used crap loads of energy to run his projects. The two were geniuses that helped me learn in so many ways.
When you are in high school, there's nothing you think you can't do. If I wanted to host my own web server with some piece of crap computer I bought from eBay for $40 to run my website (because I wasn't paying the electricity bill), I just did it. It would take me a long a** time, but it got done.
I think it's partially unfortunate that that gets learned later in our lives. We start to give more and more thought into the things you can't do. I have a friend named Jared Aronson and Beth Hosek. I live with Jared, and occasionally I ask him for tips... normally "why doesn't this code work" and he points out some stupid error I knew all along, but he's been doing this a lot long than me. He has an internship at Fifth Third over the summer. Beth, like Jared, is a CompSci major as well, but less likely to make fun of me for not being good at development or CompSci in general. It's not my major, and thus... well, I realize you really need 4 years of experience to be job-worthy. In high school, I felt like a God. Not as much of a God as Clay10 and Pla, but better than everyone else that walked into my high school, but when I went to college, I felt like a nobody again.
I was going to ask Beth if I could trade services with her. Both of us live extremely busy lives, but I want to be able to write apps in Swift and navigate Linux. She wants to learn how to play piano (last I checked... a year ago I think, things change). I thought about calling her a few days ago. I instead texted her "are you up" at 1 o'clock in the morning. She wasn't up, as expected. Clay10 and Pla would have been back in the day when we'd have Skype calls lasting until at least midnight.
The next day, she texted me back telling me she was asleep. I never explained to her that I want her to sit down with me and do homework while I do code-wars challenges and actually learn how to use GitHub. The day after that, I felt bad bothering someone I know who is just as busy as I was, so I reduced my actions to just thinking about it instead of asking her for help. Although it may be polite to her, the problem is that just thinking about asking for help or thinking about starting a band isn't helping me accomplish any of my goals. That's the problem with me: I have all of these amazing goals that require more than one person, but I'm too shy to ask them. I want to play piano in a band. I want to work out with someone else instead of running on the elliptical alone. I want to think about our futures and starting a business. The last thing I want to do is drink at a party at 11pm. Drinking makes you feel better about yourself and care less about your own goals, but what's the point of that? Making friends is the only positive outcome that comes out of that, but I haven't made any. My friends aren't made at a party, they're made from finding people on my floor with open doors and walking in (which is sad because the VWK doors don't stay open). I find my friends through class projects and the people I work with, not the people I go to parties with.
There's going to be a part two to this. I presented the problem here, which I think is I'm having trouble making friends and understanding the ones I already have. I can't tell if they like me, what they think of me, what I do well, and what is annoying about me. On my side of it, I want to push them to do things that are beneficial to both of us, like, teaching someone how to play piano or make a website from scratch even though SquareSpace exists and maybe that's not a useful thing to do anymore. Scratch that idea. I want friends that I can be with no matter what we do together.
Put even shorter and more bluntly, I'm just too afraid to ask. I'm afraid of rejection so instead of being a defined person, I present myself as a person who has no political opinions and interest. Instead, I'm just a super busy student double majoring, working at a theater, and running a recordings studio. And yes - that keeps me more busy than I ever wish to be... but that's not just the life I want to live. I want to make a best friend and spend my life with them. I want them to help me become a better lighting designer, piano player, or media producer. A friend knows what you need before you even ask... but lately, nobody is there not because I'm hateful, but because I tip toe with everything I talk about.
The solution? Talk to someone who's more sane than I am. But who even wants to talk about this? I reached out to a friend... then another in writing. If someone reached out to me with this problem, I'd solve it by becoming their friend and offering to get lunch and hang out at the Cat Cafe together. They would love me (as friends) and I would love them. That's a gap I haven't crossed yet. I haven't asked anyone for help in coding, becoming better at piano, running lights, making friends... anything.
Perhaps that's the next step. I think part of the problem is that I have free time to realize all the things I wish I were better at. And there are a lot of things I'm amazing at... but if you're the Jack of all trades... you're the master of nothing. Being a specialist is what's valuable in the world. Maybe it's time I drop parts of what I love about my life like I dropped my eBay web server, my several Raspberry Pi's/Arduinos, and 97% of my high school friends.
I'm confused. I'm realizing this isn't clear. I can't word the problem easily, so I shouldn't talk about the solution yet. More later...
But that isn't the point of this. I don't what the point is yet to be honest. One point is that I now value my time at more than $5/hr assuming it would probably take me three hours to figure out how to transfer my domain somewhere else, renew my GitHub student pack, and do a bunch of other shenanigans to get Blogger to work with a domain not run by Google Domains. Google makes it really easy. I miss the days when I had the time to make a digital oceans server for like $4/month, get ubuntu installed or something, spend 5 hours learning how to use the linux terminal to install some free web server software where I'd fail so much until I eventually accessed whatthehellamidoing.me/helloworld.html.
What I miss more is the brilliant people I would get to work with to make this happen. Clayton completed an internship at Amazon a few months back. Pla, before he focused more on lighting, had several servers in his basement that used crap loads of energy to run his projects. The two were geniuses that helped me learn in so many ways.
When you are in high school, there's nothing you think you can't do. If I wanted to host my own web server with some piece of crap computer I bought from eBay for $40 to run my website (because I wasn't paying the electricity bill), I just did it. It would take me a long a** time, but it got done.
I think it's partially unfortunate that that gets learned later in our lives. We start to give more and more thought into the things you can't do. I have a friend named Jared Aronson and Beth Hosek. I live with Jared, and occasionally I ask him for tips... normally "why doesn't this code work" and he points out some stupid error I knew all along, but he's been doing this a lot long than me. He has an internship at Fifth Third over the summer. Beth, like Jared, is a CompSci major as well, but less likely to make fun of me for not being good at development or CompSci in general. It's not my major, and thus... well, I realize you really need 4 years of experience to be job-worthy. In high school, I felt like a God. Not as much of a God as Clay10 and Pla, but better than everyone else that walked into my high school, but when I went to college, I felt like a nobody again.
I was going to ask Beth if I could trade services with her. Both of us live extremely busy lives, but I want to be able to write apps in Swift and navigate Linux. She wants to learn how to play piano (last I checked... a year ago I think, things change). I thought about calling her a few days ago. I instead texted her "are you up" at 1 o'clock in the morning. She wasn't up, as expected. Clay10 and Pla would have been back in the day when we'd have Skype calls lasting until at least midnight.
The next day, she texted me back telling me she was asleep. I never explained to her that I want her to sit down with me and do homework while I do code-wars challenges and actually learn how to use GitHub. The day after that, I felt bad bothering someone I know who is just as busy as I was, so I reduced my actions to just thinking about it instead of asking her for help. Although it may be polite to her, the problem is that just thinking about asking for help or thinking about starting a band isn't helping me accomplish any of my goals. That's the problem with me: I have all of these amazing goals that require more than one person, but I'm too shy to ask them. I want to play piano in a band. I want to work out with someone else instead of running on the elliptical alone. I want to think about our futures and starting a business. The last thing I want to do is drink at a party at 11pm. Drinking makes you feel better about yourself and care less about your own goals, but what's the point of that? Making friends is the only positive outcome that comes out of that, but I haven't made any. My friends aren't made at a party, they're made from finding people on my floor with open doors and walking in (which is sad because the VWK doors don't stay open). I find my friends through class projects and the people I work with, not the people I go to parties with.
There's going to be a part two to this. I presented the problem here, which I think is I'm having trouble making friends and understanding the ones I already have. I can't tell if they like me, what they think of me, what I do well, and what is annoying about me. On my side of it, I want to push them to do things that are beneficial to both of us, like, teaching someone how to play piano or make a website from scratch even though SquareSpace exists and maybe that's not a useful thing to do anymore. Scratch that idea. I want friends that I can be with no matter what we do together.
Put even shorter and more bluntly, I'm just too afraid to ask. I'm afraid of rejection so instead of being a defined person, I present myself as a person who has no political opinions and interest. Instead, I'm just a super busy student double majoring, working at a theater, and running a recordings studio. And yes - that keeps me more busy than I ever wish to be... but that's not just the life I want to live. I want to make a best friend and spend my life with them. I want them to help me become a better lighting designer, piano player, or media producer. A friend knows what you need before you even ask... but lately, nobody is there not because I'm hateful, but because I tip toe with everything I talk about.
The solution? Talk to someone who's more sane than I am. But who even wants to talk about this? I reached out to a friend... then another in writing. If someone reached out to me with this problem, I'd solve it by becoming their friend and offering to get lunch and hang out at the Cat Cafe together. They would love me (as friends) and I would love them. That's a gap I haven't crossed yet. I haven't asked anyone for help in coding, becoming better at piano, running lights, making friends... anything.
Perhaps that's the next step. I think part of the problem is that I have free time to realize all the things I wish I were better at. And there are a lot of things I'm amazing at... but if you're the Jack of all trades... you're the master of nothing. Being a specialist is what's valuable in the world. Maybe it's time I drop parts of what I love about my life like I dropped my eBay web server, my several Raspberry Pi's/Arduinos, and 97% of my high school friends.
I'm confused. I'm realizing this isn't clear. I can't word the problem easily, so I shouldn't talk about the solution yet. More later...
