Just like martial arts, cooking, travelling, photography,and nearly everything else that we do there are more to our activities than the activities themselves. They help us discover who we are and define our personal narrative. Recently I’ve been realizing there is more to coding than just coding. I’ve noticed that when I code I’ve been discovering things about myself and my thoughts.
I practice mindfulness everyday, at least I do my best I’m not perfect and neither is my practice, and as a result of that I try to spend every moment in the moment. It’s given me the ability to appreciate life for what it is and truly enjoy every moment of life; good, bad, ups, downs, and everything in between.
What I’ve noticed has been that while coding, the things that have weighed me down throughout the day or stresses of the world diminish in strength and intensity. This has been a truly great experience, it seems that even when I’m focused on coding I’m able to work through the things that have been worrying or bothering me and by the time I finish coding I’ve got a solution or relief from the issue(s) that was bothering me.
It’s not always about dealing with bad things or negative things, while coding I’ve been able to hash out great ideas, business plans, and insights into who I am. I don’t believe that we ever truly figure out who we are or what our purpose is and we’re always discovering things about ourselves and coding has given me the meditative practice to assist in exploring more of myself and my thoughts.
Coding is a craft, it’s not just a skill. It can be molded, annealed, honed, and sharpened like a razor sharp katana. Coding is a mental exercise that consists of being mindful of what you are doing and how the actions you are taking affects the world around it. Whether or not we realize it, we are meditating and practicing mindfulness, further crafting our abilities.
Truly brilliant coders are masters of mindfulness, they see the moment and beyond. They have intimate knowledge of how things work and how they can manipulate them to build something ever more amazing and beautiful. They’ve crafted their abilities into powerful tools for impacting the moments of our lives.
Coding is more than just coding; it’s a craft and a centering of self. The further we stay present in our code and be mindful of their interactions we can further develop our craft to something truly powerful. The coding byproduct assists the present us by lending a meditative state to work through any concern or idea we may have weighing in our mind.
Once our skills grow our mind automates more and more of the task which results in more of our time spent empty (at true zen, a complete focus) allowing us to start discovering things about ourselves and our purpose. Giving us opportunity to take notice of all the things that are in our lives good or bad, and giving us a method to resolve our thoughts.