Day 445: Possessed

Sometimes, I find myself possessed.

My eyes open at 3am, unable to return to dreamland because my brain has already sunk its teeth back into the great, deep mysteries of life that were being contemplated before falling asleep. You know, stuff like “Is there a way to refresh the user’s Google OAuth access token on the client using Firebase or the client API library, or do I need to use the chrome.identity permission?” The hard-hitting questions that bring meaning and purpose into our lives.

When I work on Browserflow — or anything, really — I find myself of two minds. I get really into the things I do, and for long stretches of time, they can become all-consuming. My life is a collection of these, from fitness and programming to content creation and meditation. This latest descent back into building products and programming has now reached its 1.5 year mark, and I’m still very much into it. The flame still burns hot and fuels days like today where I code at my desk for 12 hours straight and wish I could keep going. I mean, of course I’ll have moments where I want to cut off my hands and not have to implement an OAuth flow for the fourth time, but hey, that’s part of the territory. For the most part, I find it incredibly energizing to fully immerse myself in things. Being possessed is fun.

And then there’s the other mind. I read a lovely memoir the other day called The Magical Language of Others that my sister recommended because the author explores growing up in the States without her parents around which is similar to our upbringing. There’s a part where she talks about falling in love with poetry and pouring herself into it, locking herself in her bedroom, staying up nights, and producing hundreds of poems. At one point, a famous poetry professor she studied under tells her over coffee and hot chocolate: “You are working way too hard, Angela. It’s only poetry.”

It’s only poetry.

These are my two minds, seemingly in conflict but co-existing nonetheless. As I work, as I throw myself into whatever interest or hobby or project I happen to be possessed by, I do so whole-heartedly, as if my entire being depends on it. At the same time, there’s the recognition, seen through quiet eyes, that none of it’s to be taken seriously.

It’s only code.

It’s only building a product, it’s only technology, it’s only business, it’s only money, it’s only work, it’s only one of the multitude of ways that life does its dance during the brief miracle of existence.

To live passionately, with great zest and furor, all with a gentle lightness of being.