Reading10: Fixation

I completely understand nerding out about stuff. I feel like everyone has about something or other at some point in their life. When I was younger, it was Nintendo. I thought I was so cool because I knew all of the history and could recite all of this info about the different console generations and stuff, always finding myself reading books and watching YouTube videos to learn more. Nowadays, it's a cappella. Since I'm music directing for my group this year, I've become fixated on music theory, watching other groups' arrangements to try and incorporate some of those ideas into my own. I feel like it's important to be passionate about something, especially a hobby that gives you a creative outlet as a distraction from work.

"This is after the divorce. Dad lives in another part of Helsinki. He thinks his kids should have more than one interest, so he signs you up for basketball, his favorite sport."

I try my best to never be quick to judge people I meet because I never know what's going on in their lives. I've had a few friends growing up who have pretty tough family situations, and I've always sorta excused any weird behavior because of that. I was lucky enough to grow up in a complete household with parents who could comfortably provide for my brother and me. I never felt the need to find security in something that wasn't a family member since I was able to have that security. Having seen it first-hand, I can try my best to understand why some people would need this.

Now I'm not saying that Linus had to have had a horrible relationship with his parents or couldn't trust his family so he distracted himself with computers, but there's a reason he included this part of his upbringing in this book--and it seems like things were pretty chaotic. Especially with the negative attention his father was constantly being given, I'm sure that this had a pretty decent effect on Linus's obsession with what he was good at. I know that Steve Jobs had experienced similar hardships as an adopted child of biological parents with religious tensions. One common thing between all of the 'greats' is their fixation with hacking of some sort--with Linus, computers...with Jobs, calligraphy--and it is obvious how these influenced their individual approaches to building systems.

"For me, it meant mainly that the phone lines were constantly busy and nobody could call us...At some point, postcards began arriving from different corners of the globe. I suppose that's when I realized people in the real world were actually using what he had created."

The coolest part about Linus's story was that he didn't intend for Linux to be this big thing. As the title suggests, bro was doing this "Just for Fun." When he talks about how a group set up a fund to help monetarily support his project, it is obvious that this positive recognition meant the world to him. It's one thing to do great work; it's another to be recognized for it. Unfortunately, there are tons of stories of individuals who will perform this work and never get the recognition. This should simply motivate the lay person, as they never know how far their contribution will go. If there's a key thing to learn from the creation of Linux, it's to do what you love. The more you pursue your interests, the better you'll understand them, and the more original your work will be. I forget if I've already referenced Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell in one of my previous posts, but the 10,000 hour rule always stuck with me. You'll have never perfected something until you put in that much time. And even then you most likely won't have. It's the drive that's important; maybe one day your side project will change the world.

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