Code monkeys suck at writing
When I started this blog, I had in mind publishing various hacks and workarounds that I’d happen to stumble upon in my day job as a code monkey. After all, any code monkey worth his salt will, on occassion rant and vent regarding some particularly ill-conceived and/or -executed block of code, as well as rave over a singularly elegant line of code.
As regular visitors (all three or four of you) will note, this plan didn’t even have the luxury of failing: it was promptly discarded, courtesy of my very first post, which had a (slight) political bent. While I do write posts that have a more technical flavor, they are few and far between for a blog owned by a professional code monkey and amateur code junkie.
The rest are highly opinionated, profanity-laden, status quo–challenging, (usually) barely coherent maunderings regarding one or another political cause.
Friends IRL have often commented that I ought to pursue a political career: maybe as a minor functionary in the baranggay, then, maybe, a city-level post. Except that goes against the one unbreakable principle I have regarding politics: Those who’d serve in positions of power ought to be the ones who’d absolutely abhor being in said position. To keep government small and inoffensive, you see: the worst disasters are often perpetuated by well-meaning biddies whose only real joy is to hold power over their neighbors.
So it’s highly unlikely that I’d ever run for any political post.
However, being a politician is an altogether different thing from being political. And one can’t help but be political: pretty much everyone in this country has their one or two politically-bent opinion they’d hold onto, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of those opinion being absolutely stupid. From jeepney drivers to owners of corporations, they all think everything would become much better if they were the ones in charge.
So I write politically bent posts.
Even this blog’s name and tagline have a political bent. Who needs actual genius, when being a political genius is enough to lie, cheat and steal your way to the second highest political position in the land? Why hold an actual opinion, when it’s easier to just align yourself with whichever crowd you’re currently hanging out with, or whatever your parents believe, or whatever latest trend of thought is currently making its way through the social networks you’re signed up with?
Of course, very few people pay attention to what I write: after all, we tend to dismiss any idealogy not compatible with our own, and not bother with those that are (everybody likes to preach to the choir, but nobody ever likes being a member of said choir). But, then again, I was never one to care about site “hits”. Exposure in that sense has never been the goal; I don’t ever want to famous, even if only to have my fifteen minutes of it (not that there’s any danger of that happening any time soon).
I don’t write posts about possibly controversial topics to drive traffic (it doesn’t work anyway, if you’re not sort-of famous to begin with)—no, the goal has always been to try and start a dialogue.
As I’ve told several friends, this generation (my generation) is too laid-back. Too content to let older people to take the reins. The precedents they’re setting are, at the very least, obnoxious and, at most, dangerous for our freedom. And yet we’re content to do nothing, not even talk about it, merely because we don’t care, since we’re going to do whatever the hell we ghoddamned please, as long as we’re not caught; or, if that’s too hard, find some way of going around it. While this ingenuity and devil-may-care attitude brings tears of joy to the libertarian in me, the stupidity our “elders” are mucking around in are liable to turn around and bit us and our children on our collective asses.
The questions they’re floundering over are ones they’re not equipped to deal with, for they aren’t the ones who grew up with our experiences. Worse yet, they know they don’t have to live with the consequences of their actions today, which are mostly half-assed stopgap measures that end up satisfying no one, yet offending everyone.
As Megadeth said, “Yesterday’s answers [have] nothing to do with today’s questions.”
A while ago, I was whining to my best friend:
The abortion post has depressed me. I’ve been trying to do this for years, but it seems my writing ability has reached a plateau: it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
Pisses me off. I know my position, and I feel strongly about it, but I can never to seem to put it across through my writing.
I’m pissed that my maunderings aren’t eliciting any reaction, even just from the people I consider part of my circle. For someone whose avowed goal is to create a stir, to generate dialogue over (what I feel are) important topics, that’s a heartbreaker.
Code monkeys are known for their disdain of documentation. It’s a stereotype that we just can’t write in such a way that conveys important information or strong emotions properly. Maybe I’d just go ahead and blame this, claim that the stereotype is true, that it’s something I just suck at.
Because the alternative—that this generation is so far gone into its collective slumber, that not even a passable friend calling their deepest beliefs into question can rouse them—is so much sadder.