This was one of those days that would make any physical fitness trainer cringe.... :-)
I spent the day at work, putting in some OT with my keester firmly planted in the chair in front of my computer. My objective was to try to get some more of my after-hours "science project" going. This is a project to develop some extra tools associated with some of the gizmos that our group has developed over the years. It is purely an after-hours experiment. The beauty of it is that for me, it's pure creativity and it's teaching me a bunch of new stuff. And I got it running - almost - I think....
It's totally extracurricular and thus, little or no time exists on-hours to work on it. Since I am at a rather interesting point in the project, and at a point where the work could actually do some good, I thought I'd go in and work on it some today. I went in late morning and sat at my computer at work until nearly 5PM. At that point, the bowl of cereal I had had for breakfast had long since gone and I suddenly realized that I was horrendously hungry.
Enough was enough... :-)
I guess many of us have our geeky phases, and recently I have been one of them. When I got home, after eating a rather hearty supper, I pulled out my laptop and remoted into work. I spent several more hours finishing up the work I had been so deeply entranced in all afternoon. As I watched various rather lousy TV shows, I sat there in my living room with my nose in my laptop, programming until only a couple of hours ago. But the bottom line is that this next phase of my science project now works.
I realized how out of touch I had been with the world outside when I suddenly realized that it was pouring out there. It was a powerful, but straight-down rain - something we have needed for weeks. And at the same time, the sun was out, low in the western sky and shining under the clouds. The result was a beautiful golden hue to the world, something I would have completely missed if Gwyn hadn't called my attention to it. I pulled myself out of my laptop and looked outside. It was gorgeous.
A few hours later, as I finished up the programming work (it worked!!!), I put aside my laptop and got ready to take the pups for a walk. Again, I realized how I had pretty much ignored the world around me, as it was now pitch black outside. The Moon was setting, a sliver in the west, and the sky was cloudless - full of stars (well, as full of stars as it gets, here in the city). After several days of hot, there was now a chilly north breeze - heavenly.
And I could easily have missed it all.... :-)
One thing I notice when I have spent quite a few hours at the computer, either writing or programming. Your emotions are somewhat ajar. I won't call it depression, but it feels almost as if there's something missing. There is a sense of being in trance, being deeply absorbed while actually doing the work. But then when putting it aside, it feels just like coming out of trance too fast - slightly disorienting. I noted that on some occasions at work, when I have been intensely into a programming project, I sometimes feel slightly down after putting it aside - say, for lunch or at the end of the day. I think it's that same rapid emergence from trance, a sudden, involuntary switch of ego states.
Becoming absorbed in something like computer work or in reading a good book occasionally seems to take one into as deep a trance as any self-hypnotic induction. Indeed, all trance really is is a selective focus and a suspension of disbelief, which was defintely the case this afternoon as my mind focused in on one programming problem after another.
It's time to pack it in - the end of a long day of waking trance and focused geekdom.
