23
Oct
Beware – the Black Hole of Cyberspace!
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The tickler in my calendar that reminds me that I want to post something on this page each week popped up two days ago — I hit the “remind me tomorrow” for the last two days, because, like most people, I also have actual work that is screaming for my time as well. So, today when it popped up, I decided “I’ll just quickly find some tech blog that is helpful — repost it and be done”…
…two hours later as I am reading an article about how build my own BitCoin miner, I realize I’ve been sucked into a black hole that has no bottom!
I suspect this dilemma is not unique to the world of Web Development, but I am finding that one of the things that takes the most discipline for me, is resisting the temptation to be distracted by peripheral interests. While I believe it is important to continue learning, I have realized quickly that no one person can possibly keep up with every new development in the tech world. At best it might be possible to try to follow a very narrow slice of the field of one’s specialty, but even that task is tenuous.
What is becoming painfully apparent to me is the realization that if I read vociferously every day, I would likely not have enough time left in my life to consume the amount of information needed to know all I think I need to know to be an expert in my field. As a result, if I want to avoid losing copious amounts of time wandering about in the black hole of cyberspace and actually experience and enjoy the life I have remaining, I may have to resign myself to the fact that I will not ever get to the point of feeling like I know everything about technology. As tiresome and frustrating as it frequently is to always have some new learning curve to climb or some new challenge to overcome — it is ironically, exactly this challenge, and the “win” that occurs as the challenge is overcome, that motivates me to drag myself out of bed every morning and keep at it. (Did you all notice how cleverly I avoided actually writing anything helpful about technology in all this? Now get back to work!)