Vincent Barr

5-24 update: gained better understanding of CSS, HTML, JS, and JQuery. Will build new site using Ruby on Rails, not Drupal, so hang tight.

In an effort to increase the velocity at which I migrate away from WordPress and this theme, learn Drupal, better my understanding of CSS & HTML, and use this sum to build a new website, I am going to take a hiatus from posting here.

In the words of Geocities:

Thanks for your patience!

Vincent

What an exercise in passive aggression.

Pretending both people don’t lose in this sort of game, I wonder who won.

I’m fascinated by people who do exceptional things, people who persevere, and people who become exceptions to commonly held beliefs, practices, or expectations.

So, it really shakes me when I hear a person openly deny and dismiss her ability to pursue the something that, were it not for a range of reasons, circumstances, or past decisions, she would love to be doing. I recognize the connotation of achievement and careers with my use of the words ‘something’ and ‘doing’ in this context, but I’m thinking about this in the most universal sense, such as learning how to Bachata, remembering how to love someone, or building a sweet cabin and posting it to Cabin Porn.

John Nunemaker wrote a great post, I Have No Talent, that you can read in less than 5-minutes, but will need to digest in more.

“I used to think that I wasn’t smart enough. I was jealous of those that did crazy code stuff that I couldn’t even comprehend. Then, one day, I ran into something I did not understand and instead of giving up, I pushed through.”

I think this is when most people give up – when it sucks. When I first began Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in 2004, I showed up to a random gym in White Plains, New York in mesh shorts that were one (maybe two) sizes too small and a tee-shirt that, apparently, wasn’t rip proof (there is a reason for the gis after all). I rolled with the instructor, Sean Alvarez, who applied a rear naked choke so firmly it felt like I had strep throat for the next four days.

That sucked. I got whooped, regularly, for the better of 10 months. Practice and progress were camouflaged as pain. When things turned around, when I was able to first submit an opponent, the challenges – my opponents – felt surmountable. Matches felt more like a chess match, less like a mad scramble to survive; they slowed down. Once I knew the science, it became more art, less torture.

The kind of practice where all of a sudden I realize that it is 2am and I’m exhausted physically so I should go to bed, but mentally I feel on fire so I let the code have me another hour or two.

A perfect summation of both the cause of my insomnia and the reason I do not fight it.

Ever since then, I have attacked each thing that I do not understand until I understand it.

Comprehension is critical to doing anything meaningful. In my experience, I cannot attribute meaning to a pursuit if I do not understand why exactly I am doing it – and how could I?

I am of the population that must know how this works, why it works, and how it can be made to work in a different way. And I digress.