Onion Slices

For quite a while now, honestly as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a programmer. I wanted to sit down in front of a computer and slam out some code. Swilling Mountain Dew and peering at the computer screen for hours while I poured my artistic and logical talents into lines of phosphorescent genius.

I’ve attempted to learn to code, and in fact, I can do a passable job at basic coding tasks. I’ve taken classes in C, C++ and Java and while I understand many of the principles, much of the thinking is opaque to me.

When I take up some hobbies, I have an almost instinctual understanding of many of the “first principles” that govern the hobby. When I took up martial arts, while no genius, I was able to progress rapidly because I had the ability to understand the movement at a deep level. I was not perfect, but my brain spoke the language of the movement well enough that I could easily internalize the lessons. With cooking, I understand how heating or cooling things influences the molecular structure of foods. I understand how those foods interact with the biological receptors of our bodies to make them taste or smell good. When programming, however, I feel like a clumsy giant who is trying to string together pearls.