DEV Community: Nathan Thomas

On Loss

Nathan Thomas — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 21:57:04 +0000

Every Morning I Wake Up

It's been about 4 weeks since my grandfather died.

It was due to cancer and old age, not COVID. He was 93 and lived a great life, and our family saw this event coming.

But knowing something terrible will happen doesn't make it sting any less when it finally hits.

This is probably not the way you expected an article from me to start out. This piece won't be a downer, but rather a melancholy look at the inner thoughts of someone going through loss just like many you right now.

It's not just loss from death, either. Many of you are also going through an existential crisis as COVID rages on with no definite end in sight.

This article will be my discourse with myself as I work through the thoughts I have about finding a path forward in the brave new world we live in.

Get yourself something hot to drink. ☕️

Let's talk.

“In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.”

Walt Whitman

Into the Eye of the Storm

As I'm writing this, I just got back from a long run in the winter air of Northern California.

I can feel the chill even after a hot shower. ❄️

I often run on the trails around where I live. It helps me work through my thoughts when I'm feeling frustrated. It helps me get out of my head.

It's been almost two years since COVID overran our world. We were all broadsided with a disease that would postpone marriages, instigate political turmoil, divide families/friends, and cause people we love to pass away.

Like so many others, I've done a lot of quarantining, and it's been years since I've seen some friends who live on opposite sides of the world.

On top of this, the world also started to feel... smaller.

Not "smaller" in that way where you feel close to someone on the other side of the globe, but "smaller" in the way that a box might start closing in around you.

I think many of you have experienced this as well.

We've been riding wave after wave of COVID variants. Two of my childhood friends got it last month, and it knocked them out for weeks. One of them could do nothing more than lie on a couch with a high fever for two weeks straight and proceeded to lose 10 pounds of weight in 9 days.

With these sorts of stories (or worse) everywhere, people have become cautious when it comes to getting out to make new friends and have new experiences.

It seems like we mostly communicate digitally with each other, viewing a wall of content served up on our phones in the silence of our homes.

"'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo.

'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'"

J.R.R. Tolkien – The Fellowship of The Ring

Nobody Makes It Out Alive

Marcus Aurelius, one of the greatest emperors of Rome, kept a diary (Meditations) where he'd write his thoughts, points from the philosophy of Stoicism, and encouragement to himself. He never meant it to be read by others (side note - you should definitely try keeping a diary to write stream-of-consciousness thoughts every day).

He once wrote, “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

Think about the weight of that for a second.

It sounded so depressing to me when I first read it. But really, none of us make it out of life on this earth alive. If you accept that as a fact but use it to propel yourself forward towards your goals, the whole world opens up in front of you.

What are you going to do with the time you have here?

Are you going to sit and wait for life to happen to you, or are you going to go live?

Ryan Holiday, an author I've been enjoying reading in the pandemic, talks a lot about the concept of "Memento Mori" (or, quite literally, "Remember Death").

Death is not a horrible idea to be avoided at all costs. If you focus on the fact that you are only on this world for a set period of time, you become that much more likely to appreciate (and seek out) the experiences and people around you.

I believe there's never been a more important time to remember this than during COVID.

"I intend to live life, not just exist."

George Takei

I'm Gonna Live, I'm Alright

When my grandfather was born, he was a hillbilly in rural Ohio. In later years, he would talk about running around barefoot while trapping skunks and squirrels.

At the beginning of college, he participated in the Korean War as a conscientious objector field medic (being the same reasons and religion as Desmond Doss) and saved the lives of those he came across. He spoke a few times about that as well (which was enough for our family to know he couldn't save everyone he treated).

After surviving a war in which he lost friends, he went to Michigan and decided to make something of himself. He proceeded to get his undergraduate degree and then a PhD.

He also met my grandmother. The story goes that she was working the registration desk at their university when he walked in to sign up for classes. It wasn't very long before they were dating.

Eventually, they decided to move to California where they lived a really great life.

Despite surviving horrific early life experiences, my grandfather persisted and achieved a lot in his life.

Conclusion

I want to look back and, even if life dealt me a bad hand, be proud of the way that I played it. In order to do this, I'm going to remember that every day could be my last.

I'd encourage you to join me this year in asking to following questions:

If today was my last day...

Am I working on something that's meaningful to me?
Am I treating the people I care about with respect?
Am I working towards my goals?
Am I going out and living life?

If you can answer yes to these questions, I think you can look the future in the face.

Thanks for reading. 🔥

Nathan

(GitHub, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Portfolio Site)

The Endless Chase for Creativity

Nathan Thomas — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 06:55:39 +0000

(This article is part of an ongoing series on technical and soft skills from Nathan Thomas, a full stack software engineer working in San Francisco. He previously worked and attended Lambda School. Click here for the previous article in the series, a piece called "Destructuring in JavaScript: A How-To Guide.")

But Then We Build the Sky

It's been 8 months since I've written a soft skills article. That's roughly the entire time I've been working in tech.

For a piece about creativity, the irony is not lost on me about how hard it was to finish.

This article has been in my draft box for about 6 months now. It's been opened many times late at night when everyone else is asleep. It's been stuck in an infinite loop of never-ending rewrites.

I guess you might say that I've been struggling to feel creative.

We live in a culture that is inspired and captivated by artists and celebrities. Originality is celebrated, but we don't often talk about the source of creativity (or how to get there if we're lost in a creative desert).

Let's talk about some of the ways that we can improve our chances of hitting our creative stride.

As always, grab a nice cup of coffee or something else equally good. Let's talk. ☕️

"We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can't steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that's how you will find your voice. And that's how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you."

- Francis Ford Coppola

It's Not Always Fun

One of the most beautiful pieces of art in Europe is a painting covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Ordered by Pope Julius II, it's now considered a modern marvel that draws tourists from all around the world.

Too bad Michelangelo hated making it.

He wrote to a friend in 1509 while in the middle of painting it and said, "My painting is dead. Defend it for me…. I am not in the right place - I am not a painter."

Self doubt is natural. So is feeling "off" sometimes or like you've lost your touch. Sometimes, it will feel like you're lost in the middle of a dark woods and your only light is starting to burn out.

I once had a writing teacher who would tell students that creativity isn't some sort of bolt of lightning that hits you randomly while you're walking around. You have to reach out and take hold of it yourself.

A common rule for creative writing students is to just start jotting words down on a page, because inspiration tends to hit those who have placed them in a position to be struck.

We have to learn to push through that feeling of creative resistance. It pushes back against us and tells us that we're not worthy, that we won't amount to anything, that we have no creative talent, or that we'll never reach the dream we hold in our mind's eye.

Push through that feeling. Open up your laptop, pick up your guitar, or hold that pen in your hand.

Create.

The rewards come after you push yourself through the feelings of inadequacy.

"Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want - that just kills creativity."

- Jack White

Constrain Yourself to Find Your Path

In his book Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon says, "In this age of information abundance and overload, those who get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out, so they can concentrate on what's really important to them. Nothing is more paralyzing than the idea of limitless possibilities. The idea that you can do anything is absolutely terrifying."

Something powerful happens when artists have to create under both real and artificially-created constraints. They often find themselves exploring new ways to bend rules or push boundaries.

But that will never happen if those boundaries aren't there to begin with.

Unlimited resources can be severely overwhelming. If you're already expecting yourself to just "turn on" the faucet of creativity, it's not always beneficial to have an unlimited toolset available to crank on it.

There's a reason so many famous inventions have been created specifically to solve a problem the inventor had. The person was faced with a problem and lacked the ability to solve it, and so they created their own tool.

Don't be afraid to build something new with the limited materials you have available to you. Experiment with placing constraints on your projects and creations.

Learn the rules, and then break them.

Creativity through Quantity

Pablo Picasso, the prolific Spanish artist, produced around 50,000 pieces of art throughout his life. He was definitely driven by a desire for recognition, but he also fought with an inner desire to produce works of quality.

Most of the material he is most famous for is a very small subset of what he created. However, it's almost a guarantee that many of those works would never have existed if he didn't maintain the endless productive turmoil he placed himself in throughout his life.

What you should take away from this is that you shouldn't wait around for lightning to strike twice.

Produce.

Create new content, art, music, code, or whatever you're working on like your life depends on it. Make it your craft. Make it the thing you think about every day when you wake up.

It might seem counterintuitive (compared to only revealing completed works that you feel are perfect), but bulk production of your life's work is one of the few ways you can ensure that, when the wave of creativity hits, you're lucky enough to be standing in the surf.

"Modern art = I could do that + Yeah, but you didn't."

- Craig Damrauer

Conclusion

Creativity is hard because it's not always something you can control. It's unrealistic and impossible to just turn it on like flipping a light switch.

Instead, find ways to keep pushing yourself towards the general direction of your creative potential.

Also, play with working within a limited set of rules. You can then learn how to break them and build something completely original.

Finally, push yourself to produce large amounts of content; it's only by allowing yourself to iterate quickly that you can eventually come up with beautiful works of art.

Oh, and don't beat yourself up if you struggle with feelings of creative self-doubt. Most artists throughout history had it too, so you're in good company.

Thanks for reading. 🔥

Nathan

(GitHub, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Portfolio Site)