What’s better than Rust?
Hint: devs rarely have one themselves, even if they often use `a symbols in code. (Yet the impossible can happen!)
For many years, and especially after 2020/Apple’s M1 revolution/boost, I was under a continuous impression that with programming and just using a perfect MacBook Air everyday, I had already reached the maximum level of happiness in life!
I’m not even sure how to say it, so I’ll admit it in a very direct way, ab initio: I was oh-so-wrong all this time! 🤦♂️
No, there isn’t another programming language that I’ve just found better than Rust, nor other computers better than beloved Macs. (Maybe some really are, but… oh my: I don’t actually care anymore!)
Something else is, regardless, better than all items above!
It’s something way more personal and difficult to explain, and if you don’t feel like reading yet another avowal story from a random guy on the Internet, feel free to move on to a different article from your feed; I surely won’t mind (as I would probably do the same if I would be in your shoes…)
Now, if you have decided to read this anyway, let’s first say that I’ve been married for almost 20 years now, I have two great sons together with my gorgeous wife, and I do love my family very much.
I do also have friends and a kinda normal social life (although a bit introvert myself, indeed), all while I continue to simply be a child as a… career: computer geek since I was ten, I’m actually still earning money for just playing around with code every day!
And to the point:
I’m not religious, nor spiritual, but one day earlier this year, however, something really big has struck into my life: it was in the afternoon of a (too warm) winter Saturday, and for an absolutely unknown reason, I just felt some large amount of [multiple types of] energy suddenly invading my entire body (and soul?)
I’ve got strange itches all over and deep internal shakes everywhere… and boom! ⚡️
As lame and cartoon-ish as I’m sure this sounds, it felt like I was (finally!) becoming a young adult (at heart or whatever), with all that this implies. Me, the 44 years old kid!
It felt I could do anything and everything now. Never very social before, I felt an immediate urge to go to a club*. Previously obsessed with programming, now I wanted to just close the lid of the MacBook and chat (read: have sex) with my wife for the entire evening to come (no pun intended)!… 😎
* If before I was dreaming about being a DJ myself (and have fun by bringing fun to others), this time it was very different, as I wanted to have fun as a guest instead.
And I also had other thousands of similar thoughts, all at once.
Did you catch it? Words are so inexpressive, sometimes: that instant, I felt as young and as powerful as I’ve never felt before. Even when I was in my 20s for real!
To me these sensations were truly unbelievable, so I’d understand if you’d want to catalog them as such, too. But I promise: this is NOT a lie!
I’ve waited for some time before writing about this as I’ve initially considered there was no way this condition could be more than momentary in my life. But I must admit today that I am probably just very lucky instead: envy me or not, I still feel the same energy flow weeks later and all its related [happy] shaking comes back within me, every now and then, each day, up to this very one.
Don’t get me wrong, however: I’m still very much into writing software, just that now I do it mostly only as a job (maybe as it should have always been), rather than for pure pleasure as before. I still focus a lot on what do to next for the company and our products to (continue to) succeed and all customers to remain happy — more than I’ve ever did, as it seems I have a lot of extra business energy available, too. And lastly, but definitely not the least (this is, in fact, the absolute first): I still share a lot of time with my family around (including playing games with my kids, reading books or watching movies together, etc.) and, as well, even more than before. But, for that unknown reason, I’m also… just-like-high all the time, can you believe it!
(I’m sure everything is going to eventually end, like Nelly Furtado said all good things do, but until then why not have some fun! Life is absolutely spectacular, and I hope this thing will last for years or, better, decades, and also that this means I’ll actually live longer that average men, overall, haha!)
Some people would anyway label my story as a classic “mid-aged man crisis”. But can that occur again for me, after I’ve also jumped from Microsoft’s dev boat to Apple’s six years ago, moved to Rust’s open source and vim in 2021-2022, and after getting in love with my M1 MacBook Air some time before, while finally’ve decided to go back to printed books, pen and paper notebooks, etc., and even bought myself a mechanical watch that I wear instead of watchOS virtually every day now, too — all pretty recent events?
Moreover, as I’ve mentioned already, I have always previously felt like a child inside, and now it’s the first time to really feel like a teenager instead! To me this doesn’t seem like going back from old to young again, as I think a proper crisis would require (although I admit, the same reasoning may also apply to the list in the previous paragraph to some extent), but instead I just [want to] read it as a new [glamorous] chapter of my life, that is! 🙃
Update: Somebody told me that it’s a crisis even if I do new things that I didn’t do when I was 20 years old, like some guys tend to buy sports cars and things like that when they reach their 40s, and that is obviously something that fits the definition. But… I argue: those guys would probably want to buy such cars also in their 20s — so the thing isn’t actually a new wish (like I have here myself)…
Another update: Somebody (and my wife, too) told me that “we should just embrace our age.” All right! I’m doing that myself with grace, as well. 😎
These being said, I don’t want to bore anyone further with my new “setup” (I have better things to do, you know; read: her limit 💃), and I’m going to close this post by [old-?] fashionably sharing only “one more thing”; just in case it could trigger some excitement to anybody else, as I’d absolutely want this kind of experience to eventually occur to everyone who hasn’t yet lived it, such as, maybe, in their normal youth, especially as they’ve decided to read my hereby story thoroughly, that is:
When I was an actual teenager — was this a sign? — I’ve kinda liked the euro-dance music style (think: BassHunter); later, however, I’ve got more into Croatian pop music for some reason (think: Učiteljice; my wife said this was my “Mamaia 90” — a popular old Romanian pop festival’s — side, haha).
But guess what: crisis or not (couldn’t care less), now I’m listening to EDM every day, whenever and as much as I can, and I’m wearing both AirPods now, too! Even during walks and exercising (which I do a lot more, by the way — another side effect, I guess), I’m now almost always choosing music instead of the once-beloved tech podcasts, for which listening with a single ear was otherwise, indeed, enough.
And… I have an invitation for you, too:
Come join this phenomenal life-is-better-than-Rust-lifetimes party, right now; here’s my favorite song (as of today), hopefully good enough to start your journey soon! Enjoy! 🎧
Update — one month later: I’m still there, baby, with just more sports and… different songs!
Indeed, there are some times when I do feel a bit tired or when I simply can’t keep up with my all new ideas — it’s not as easy to be young when you’re old[ish], I guess. 😀
But I must confess I have also found the remedy, you know, and I already listed it above: it seems I just need to ensure I have room in my calendar, get on the treadmill, fast walk or run for 4.15 km+ while listening to my Mix list (or — even better — playing Mygma or MissDeep masterpieces on TV) at a loud volume, or alternatively, watching any bold/city action series I would find inspiring on Netflix or wherever — and everything is coming back to me like a charm!
Mens sana in corpore sano, they say (somebody has reminded me recently)… and it seems they’re 100% right. In fact, if I think a bit more about it, exactly that might actually be the otherwise convoluted reason for my this entire twist, after all…
So… Don’t panic if you miss me: see you/Rust when I see you/Rust. 😊
And/or see you jogging around or riding a bus in Cluj, dancing in /FORM Space, doing whatever in New York, Amsterdam, Paris, Ibiza, or… maybe… on vacation in Tuscany? I’ve already done some of these (but I’d surely want to repeat such good experiences), while others are new “life goals”, of course.
Update — final note: this (for me: new) way of living works very well with… absurdism!
Later update — the previous paragraph was obviously not the final note, haha: after further thinking, I’ve reached to a possible different conclusion, just as strange as the “problem” is itself. Maybe… programming (as both a hobby and hobby-profession) could have actually worked like a [4:1] cryogenic factor of some sort?… 🤪
