Day 128: Playing Games

Today, I went into hermit mode and just coded. (Sorry to friends and users who have sent me emails and messages. I’ll eventually get back to you!) It’s been a while since I’ve gotten deep into building a feature, and I was reminded just how nice it is to dive into a problem and emerge victorious hours later with a working solution.

I wonder if I’ll ever get the same enjoyment from writing emails, brainstorming marketing tactics, or talking to customers.

Actually, I already know the answer to that from my years working as a product manager: nope. It’s not even close. The other things can be interesting at times, but the act of creating something simply from tapping some keys is pure magic. It’s what got me hooked all those years ago in high school when I made Karel the Robot move around my screen and collect beepers. I felt like a wizard, and my life was forever changed.

People sometimes think that I’m disciplined for spending a lot of time working, but really, I’m just having fun playing the game of building stuff. Now if only there were a way to make all the other stuff fun, too…