Rules of a Zen Programmer

I end up adding known distractions that I can (mostly) do without to my system hosts list and then if I need to use them, I have them on a phone/tablet I will find more annoying to use for a longer time period, thus limiting my time and desire to use them. There's browser extensions that accomplish the same thing of course, but the hosts list takes a few more steps to circumvent.

Warning: generalizations and prejudice ahead.

The first sentence because it sounds so simple but is in fact deeply philosophical. Walk around in Germany and talk to people, and keep tabs on how often you hear seemingly simple "by the way" lines that could be considered lovely life wisdoms in their own right.

The second sentence because Germany, for me, is a country of culture, activism and the Piratenpartei (1). Copying something, sec, is basically the definition of not changing it. Saying that it is a change supports the ideas of freedom of culture, sharing, the kopimi movement, and so on. "Hey, it's a copy, so that's kind of like a remix, right?". Other than that, the sentence suggests that a thing isn't really anything at all when seen apart from its context, so copying something indeed very much changes it. That, again, is one such beautifully deep observation said in such a casual way. tab, tab.

Finally, if you read it all aloud it just sounds weird. Until you read it with a German accent. It sounds great with a German accent.

Full disclosure: I'm Dutch. The Dutch were once found, in a survey from the German exterior ministry, to be the people most fond of Germans of all countries neighbouring Germany (lost reference, but not making this up). I'm also very fond of schnitzel and currywurst.

(1) I know the Swedes started it, but that's besides the point. Germany is also the country where 4chan users actually go outside, wearing Guy Fawkes masks, to hand out flyers against Scientology. 4chan users. Outside.

Deeply believing in something and standing for it is very common in Germany.

I am the author of the blog post. Thank you very much, I take it as a huge compliment.

I am not sure if what you said is to be generalized. I am afraid, the image of germany being a deeply philosophical nation of thinkers cannot stand at detailled observation.

But I can say, two things:

First, I try to write short sentences which are straight. My english skills are OK in conversations, but I am far from being a great writer. It takes me a lot of time to write, and almost in every sentence you can hear the german in me. Maybe this creates a specific atmosphere in what I write. But I cannot judge this.

Second, I am studying psychology and thus have to read a lot of philosophical and cultural text. I enjoy it very much and try to learn about cultural aspect as much as possible. I am also a Zen buddhist in real life (not only saying in the post) and learn a lot from my teachers. It all makes me think.

It honors me that you attribute the deep thinking in what I wrote. Again, thank you very much for your comment, it makes me feel good.

There is nothing wrong with completing tasks the most efficient way possible.

In this case, the copy/paste action was just the most boring task I could imagine. Please replace this phrase with "a boring task you cannot escape at best will". It's not really about Excel to phpMyAdmin.

I actually have seen a guy doing something like this before years. Thats why it came to my mind. This guy was not a competent programmer. I should have used a different example maybe. But it is not so easy to find a "boring task" which cannot be automated in todays dev world.

Disclaimer: maybe nothing "deep to say", but this is the story which came to my mind, when I wrote the post. In my opinion, Zen has nothing to do with fatalism as might be understood with this example. Go ahead, make things better. I am thinking about replacing this example, because it came back to me several times now.

In any case, thank you for taking the time reading it and asking this question.

I think these rules miss the point of Zen. The primary teaching isn't about achieving spiritual perfection by embodying absolute states of mind. It is about finding a middle road between two extremes. For example, although a gigantic ego makes it difficult to cooperate with others, it would not be possible to survive without an ego. The middle road is to find the connection between your ego and the egos of other people. If you think you are selfless and have no ego, the paradox is that you probably have a gigantic ego, because your identity is invested in being spiritually pure.

The stuff about "shut up", "stop crying", "there is nothing special about you", and "NEVER stay at a company which does take away the happiness in your life" is similarly unhelpful. Zen teaches us that working with emotions is often more effective than working with thoughts, so if you're crying, that's probably important. In terms of being special, a snowflake is both unique and highly similar to all the others at the same time. It's abusive to focus only on the similarity. And if a company is taking away your "happiness", there's a reasonably good chance that it's an opportunity for you to learn something about yourself before you run away from the situation.