My wonderfully geeky world

Would it be incredibly geeky to admit I have a love hate relationship with the ones and zeros of the programming world?
I'm back in the swing of things with assignments, readings and my ever familiar state of procrastination. I began my first graduate course mere Mondays ago and now as the course is near its end I thought I’d take a minute to reflect on the fact that, I've never enjoyed school more. The idea of being able to do it whenever I want and without stringent deadlines or the guilt of missing tutorials or lectures reminds me of how I fell in and out of love with computer science over the years. I reminisce, grimace and smile a little at it all now in retrospect. I remember now why I took that oath to stick to it even though my bastard bitch of a counselor insisted that perhaps I "should stick to the arts instead" with a tone of belittling ridicule disguised as concern. I remember how I hugged the department secretary when she informed me I'd been accepted into the program as she looked at me with wide eyed shock and horror. I remember my mini hyperventilation and sweaty palm syndrome attacks at the thought of an assignment. I remember my many sleepless nights perhaps attributable to my SEVERE procrastination inevitably exponentially increasing my stress levels. I remember tossing and turning in bed not being able to sleep but forcing myself to do so just so I could escape having to face the music. I remember the staple oriental dude sitting in front of me with shiny reflective greasy hair sprinkled with dandruff the size of walnuts in all of my computability and algorithms classes. I remember the gazillion 8 o'clock lectures I missed because I just couldn't keep my eyes open after an all nighter in the computer lab. But set the strict deadlines aside and the need to take 4 other courses at the same time and ohhh ahhh its magic again. And just like that “the Matrix” is cool again. I'm loving it. And why? Why or how could someone supposedly semi creative and living not outside the box but at least with the same exposure as a jack in the box find awe and wonder in programming? Well this is the thing… programming is insanely complex but at the same time ridiculously basic and simple. There's a certain thrill involved in being able to make a machine do things the human brain takes for granted. It's almost spiritual. You realize that even the dumbest person out there is born with a gift incredibly difficult to mimic or duplicate. All the issues with AI are a testament to this. Knowing you have the nuts, bolts and ply wood in your hands and all you need is the imagination and creativity to build wonders is intoxicatingly pleasurable. I imagine this is what painters feel when they are presented with a shit load of acrylics, a red sable weasel bristle brush and a stretched canvas.

Stretching and tweaking my approach to a problem I’ve fully understood gives me this high that's difficult to find elsewhere. Though extremely frustrating, I love the resolution that is reached after I’ve over come the bleakness that arises from realizing I've exhausted all my options in the route I’ve chosen to take in order solve the problem. It’s when the light bulb goes of in my head and I see something I hadn't in the beginning that I’m thrilled. It ignites a fury of possibilities.

It is perhaps because my first recollection of an epiphany was associated with computer science that I have grown so attached to it. Sounds like a mile high of bullshit but it’s my truth.

It was absolutely perfect. I'd racked my brains trying to come to a solution and had what I thought was the perfect idea except for a single glitch, a glitch that could cost me having to redesign the entire program. I thought and thought and thought and in the midst of it all I fell asleep. I had a dream and though the logistics of the solution weren’t presented to me, I saw something that gave me an idea. I woke up and scratched down some pseudo code. I slept like a baby. I’d convinced myself that I’d solved the problem and could sleep. The next morning I see the note pad but dismiss it.

“How silly are you? What? You actually think the solution came to you in your sleep?”

After I’d spent endless more hours trying to get my solution to work I thought what the heck look at it. Read it. Try it out. Lo and behold it worked! It was as though the clouds in the heavens parted and the rays of golden sun filtered through the air upon me and the sound “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh” could be heard all round! Absolutely magnificent! A prophetic experience. So there u have it. My moment of epiphany and extreme clarity. My want to recreate and relive that split second where it all made sense despite the chaos in my head and on paper. And that I suppose on it’s own is justification enough to love my wonderfully geeky self and world with java in it!