Daniel Crenna

Code Soloist #19: Interventions

I read the post of a young man, much like myself, who is lamenting his addiction to idea creation, to finding more satisfaction living in the possibilities of new projects than in the reality of building them. He has a lot of domain names, because he believes the thrill of it is in the beginning.

That fact that we don’t hear more stories like these is only because few people have the courage to stand out in this way, especially when we commonly hold on to beliefs that we aren’t good enough, such as we are.

First, a swift jolt of deprogramming, to lift us out of this state of mind. Read “We Are The 99% Of Startups”. Read “Fuck Glory - Startups are One Long Con”. Try to laugh, just a little bit, at all this pageantry over flipping bits around.

The thrill of it, truly, is in the completing. Because coming from a place of completion, we get to do all the things we’re afraid we should be doing, but aren’t. Because anything other than completing, whatever we do to try to replace that place of true privilege (like conferences, schmoozing, new web sites, marketing spends, et al.), is just stealing from our own future.

Channeling Anne Lamott, programming is just one damn line of code after another.

So, Sean, you are the intervention. Not this made up version of you that has to have certain things about your art be true, to be happy. The you right now. So pick one of your ideas out of a hat, and work on it, not in a frenzied pace where you stare at the clock like you’re missing the party. Just work on it, slowly, until it’s done. Then do the next one.

Code Soloist is for single-person software development companies that are trying to start something big with their bare hands. In it, I try to impart whatever I’ve learned, for better or worse, doing the same thing badly.