The Third Bit

Sylvia Jane Cotton (née Wilson), November 7, 1964 – January 21, 2012

I have sometimes dreamt that when the Day of Judgment dawns and great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards—their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble—the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.”
— Virginia Woolf

Family

Family

Family

I spoke last week with a woman in her mid-twenties who is working at her first start-up, and would like one day to start a company of her own. I asked her why: why start your own company when there are so many good ones out there to join? Her answer was that she likes starting things—always has. “Yes, but why?” I asked, several more times. Is it that you like being in charge? Is it the echo-of-creation thrill that comes from making something out of nothing, or the social cachet that is attached these days to being a founder? I said then that knowing why you enjoy certain things is as important to your life and career as knowing why people buy your product is to your business. If Steve Jobs was right, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do, then shouldn’t your number one priority be figuring out what you actually love?

I had a similar conversation the next day with a former student who has become one of the best young programmers I know. He has been working for one startup, is transitioning to another, would like to do some teaching, and would also like to—well, that’s what he wanted to talk to me about. He’d like to get into a larger, long-term project of some kind, but wasn’t sure what. After kicking around a few suggestions (humanitarian open source, extensible programming systems, et cetera), we came to the conclusion that what he really wants is the coding equivalent of a regular running partner: someone he won’t have to slow down to keep pace with, someone who’ll be out there rain or shine to keep him going. What he really wants is to find a bunch of people who enjoy the same kinds of things he enjoys, for the same reasons, who will go as far and as fast as he will. Right now, I think that means he should go off and explore functional programming, but that’s not what really matters. What really matters is the sit-by-the-fire warmth that comes from knowing that you can pick up the conversation where you left off, and that if you’re out there in the cold and wet, someone else will be there too.

In the end, the search for that feeling is the common thread through almost everything I’ve done. Grad school, teaching programming to scientists, running student projects at the University of Toronto, editing books, organizing music classes for kids—they’re where I was looking, not what I was looking for. And as my sister’s time draws to a close, I’ve realized why. We are none of us long in this life, and I think we all want to believe that when we have to run our last lap, we won’t have to run it alone. I think we all want friends to keep pace with, day after day, while we’re alive, so that we can be sure that someone will be out there, still running, when we’re not.

Family

I was a Buddhist for three weeks back in the fall of 1985. I had just moved to Edinburgh, ostensibly to do a Master’s degree in artificial intelligence, but mostly because I wanted a chance to reinvent myself. The coolest guy I knew was a Buddhist—a real one, not just an intense vegetarian in a black beret—and I thought, hey, maybe if I become a Buddhist, I’ll be cool too.

It didn’t work out that way. I quickly discovered that being a Buddhist was hard work. I’m not talking about abstinence and chastity and the rest—you don’t have to give those up right away unless you really want to, and both were more of a hypothetical loss at that point in my life. No, what was hard was the meditation. I was more than a little bit surprised to discover that if you took it seriously, it was as hard as math, and much harder than programming. Disaggregating your own consciousness and putting the pieces on a mental workbench so that they would be still—so that you could be still—required more than I was willing to invest at the time. Plus, I’d met this girl, see, and…

But here I am, a quarter of a century later, wishing I had stuck with it. My sister went back into hospital this morning; it isn’t the end, yet, but we’re closer every day, and more and more I wish that I had the balance and resilience that I might have had if I’d stuck with it. Starting now would be like saying, “Huh, I’m having a heart attack, guess I’d better go for a run,” but on the other hand, I know there is more loss coming, and more beyond that. My parents are old, and not well; one of my niblings has chronic health issues, another is likely to be serving in a war zone in a couple of years, and—and no one lives forever. (That’s as close as I can get to saying, “Something might happen to my wife or my daughter some day.”)

I wish I had the balance that seems to come from a long practice of stillness. I wish I had the energy to start practicing now, so that I might have it when I next need it, but most of all, I wish my little sister wasn’t dying of cancer at 45.

Family

Family

Sadie and I went out to Table 17 for our anniversary last night while Dee babysat Madeleine. The food was delicious, and afterward, we walked home along Queen Street, stopping off at Film Buff for ice cream (Sadie) and key lime soda (me). I woke up around 5:30 (damn that internal alarm clock), worked on Lernanta for half an hour, then went downstairs and started sorting out the basement (which has been on my to-do list since Christmas).

Sadie and Maddie woke up around 8:00; we left the house a bit before 9:00 to get cranberry rolls, almond croissants, coffee, and lemonade (for Maddie) at Voulez Vous, then headed downtown so that I could collect the last of my stuff from the Scimatic office on Spadina. Once the car was loaded we walked up to Kensington Market to pick up some groceries; the high point for Maddie was roaring up and down the purple accessibility ramp at The Fairies Pyjamas.

It was already 30° by the time got home, having stopped at the Paint Depot on Queen St. to pick up a half gallon of pale yellow and another half of pale purple, plus some brushes and rollers. I went back downstairs (the basement really was a mess) while Sadie and Maddie went up to the study to tarp, tape, and paint. Two hours and a hasty lunch later, I started on the garage, which was in even worse shape than the basement. We had a bit of a scare mid-afternoon when Maddie took a tumble on the stairs, but other than a couple of bruises and a bit lip it turned out to be nothing that a cuddle from mummy, a freezie, and some TV couldn’t fix.

We wrapped up around four o’clock. I called my sister while Sadie was showering: her oldest son heads back to RMC early tomorrow morning. She probably won’t see him again (even though the oncologist is now saying she could make it to the end of October), so of course we talked about everything else¹. Afterward, Sadie, Maddie, and I ambled up to Regency for dinner around 5:00 for some of Toronto’s best chana masala. We got home in time to watch a Tinker Bell movie before bed, which, considering that it portrays TB as a bit of a nerd, was a pretty good end to the day for all three of us.  And yeah, the study needs its second coat, we need to find someone to paint the trim (I’m incompetent, and Sadie hates doing it), the chest of drawers that’s half-blocking the basement hall needs to come up and go out, I still haven’t figured out where to put the bike hangers in the garage, and life is so short it’s all I can do sometimes not to weep, but it was still a really, really good day.

1)We’ve been kicking all kinds of questions back and forth, like, “What’s your earliest memory of ice cream?” and, “What do you think your kids will remember most about you?” The most recent was, “OK, so assuming you make it, what would you like Saint Peter to say to you when you reach the Pearly Gates?” The best answer so far has been, “Hi, boss.”

Family, Uncategorized

Family

Family

Great post from David Humphrey about teaching his children what makes a computer go. I still don’t know my way around their insides (computers, I mean, not children); maybe I’ll get to learn along with Maddie.

Family