Rome; Pompeii and Atlantis
prelude;
Dramatic titles for me are an art form and today we are about to talk about something with no relation to any of the cities mentioned above but points to critical moments in all. Abstract titles are my way of art and ironically they a mosaics that my mind paints.
Rome was not built in a day; this a saying that has been repeated for a long time, and will also be passed to generations as long as humanity remains. It is true, Rome as an empire has been around Before Christ and After Christ hence, it is obvious that it was not a day’s job. I think it is more important to take the principles of Roman Construction and apply them in our lives.
The senior Pastor at Life Church said something in a sermon I watched, He said “When we are born we look like our Parents, when we die we look like our choices ”. That word struck me and I who enjoy a largely sedentary lifestyle imposed on me by the nature of my career went for a much-needed walk. I live in Ajah (an area in Lagos) and I have lived here for a while now (except when I was in Uni), I have seen development occur with time and how places that would have you scared now look like a jewel.
However it was not always so, I recalled and remembered what it used to be like when I walked towards a now abandoned house, an abandoned site, and a poorly maintained sand-filled road. When I began to see these buildings and roads, got the burden to paint them with words as it cuts across various niches.
Pompeii
Knowledge is the most pleasant and annoying thing to have, it is a double edge sword. Ardan Labs a software company that has a training arm has a saying, “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, just wait until you hire an amateur” and it is true about learning, “If you think it’s expensive to train to be a professional, try ignorance”. Like every good Lawyer, I will present facts that could be misconstrued but I hope I paint pictures that will live an impression on you.
Pompei is/was a city that existed in Italy under the Roman empire that got buried under ash from an Erupted volcano called Mount Vesuvius. They thrived as a City till a threat possibly called everyone who lived in that city.
Knowledge as a double edge sword had me asking how did people come to settle around an Active Volcano. Did they have no Geophysicist, no Geologist in ancient Rome that could inform people of the threat to life? Ignorance which was not an active choice of the people of Pompeii levelled and buried an entire city.
Atlantis
Atlantis is presented as a lost city buried somewhere in the ocean, although scientific inquiry has presented facts that Plato’s work which mentioned Atalantis in his work Timaeus and Critias was not a total representation of life but an allegory to drive home a point. As such science concludes that Atlantis never existed. Well, I am not debating science but Intend to accept for the basis of this at Atlantis did exist.
A beautiful city that got buried as a result of earthquakes, again if Atlantis really did exist why did its people decide to settle on an Island? If they had the foresight of the future would they have settled there? I would argue and present an engineer's answer “It depends”, however, the law of averages agrees that if they settled elsewhere and the earthquake happens again the island may sink or it would not, depending on its averages (in this case the intensity of the quake).
These two cities albeit one being a farce and the other did exist, are demonstrations of how knowledge gaps are our undoing. I looked at buildings that were the houses that tickled my need to be rich and a few of them looked like the have sunk. I remember coming to Dad’s house while it was constructed and its foundation was so high. My dad imagine the height of the road ( in the future ) which I felt was nearly insane. Looking at houses around that looked like they had sank and will still sink I began to understand that an intricate part of knowledge and building (not actual buildings) with it is the ability to preempt actions, develop more knowledge and respond accordingly.
Today the height of the road is at least a level higher than my Dad anticipated. There are 5 new buildings around my Dad’s house and they seem taller because of the new ground level the foundation was laid, luckily for my Folks their house did not sink or sink as much, but this ability to preempt the future or an unforeseen circumstance struck me as a key to building.
Recently I switched my work codebase from an in-route logic-dependent application to a repository pattern which was initializing access to the Database (DB) in the Repositories, that was an excellent design for me at the time, the way the DB was accessed was flawless and I felt nothing could go wrong.
There has been a sprint-like approach my team had imbibed to produce the product that had been blueprinted (designed). In this fire brigade approach, I discovered that the access to the DB was a poor decision, my ignorance of this was glaring and staring me down and I had to come up with a solution. I spent 16 hours working across two days to come up with a solution that resolves the DB via the Framework’s method. I am sure it feels like I have lost you, apologies. Enough of Tech detailed talk layered with backend remarks. My ignorance meant that if this product went live based on my decision and knowledge at the time there was going to be an epic fail.
Luckily for me, I saved the day by experimenting and drawing fact-based solutions from a source of truth (FastAPI’s documentation), my teammates attested to an uptick in performance across my system. There is a word for if that situation above got to production and I have to manage the such situation and resolve it. It is called Technical debt. The lack of knowledge with regards to something intricate means that we would not deliver at the optimal mark in that regard.
A lot is happening across the world, the more we look the more we see that no one really has it all figured out, communities, countries, sports teams, people and automated processes. Knowledge is not a destination it is a continuous place. Knowledge is the refiner's fire, through its acquisition we realize how flawed our previous implementations are.
How do we save ourselves from ending up like Pompeii and Atlantis? How do we stop being triggered by technical debt and failures?
We do this by becoming like Rome.
Rome
Rome seems to be a wonder of the world, because, at some point in our lives, we hear Rome was not built in a day to persuade us to do the work. The idea however is to communicate to us the Kaizenic nature of Rome’s Architecture. There are Ancient structures that are still up today, such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the Roman amphitheatre among a few which I know.
These structures are borne out of a place of improvement, the first structure architects would design would give them the cringe if they look at it after years of practice and work, this is why tech solutions are versioned, and this is why we have a Corolla 1998 and 2023 version. It is the Kaizenic nature of constant improvement, this motion is borne out of a place of constant reflection and a zest for the better.
This is why Veterans in any field are better than young blood, this is why the best coaches are people who actively did what they are coaching about (Albeit not at the grandest of stages).
The Roman buildings and the empire did not take over the whole world in one day, it was a gradual continuous action that became the empire. Some battles, some wars, some years of peace. History’s recounts are always fast and opaquely divulging to the perspective of time and timing. A good example as we ride out on the last strokes of this art, are football players.
A lot of these players dedicate their lives to this sport, childhood, teenage, and even their youth, why will Haland not be a deadly striker? Why will he also not lose a penalty, how come he could he can easily move on.
Time is an important perspective to everything including knowledge, I hated balancing chemical equations in secondary school but I loved it in the early years of Uni.
The most important thing these buildings have thought me is if we are not dead yet then we can become better, your next project should be better than the previous one, that is the only way to show growth and become Rome.
When we are born we are like our parents, but in death, we are our choices. I live you with a wise word on life, we will always have regrets in life, these are an opportunity cost of opportunities forgone. The rule is to remember regret is a feature of life, not a Bug.
Till next time.
Kaizen
