So, for the longest time, I've worried that my upbringing was hampering my progress. I never achieve near as much as I think I should be able to. I've attributed that to two major things:
1) Being told constantly that I was ahead of everyone else (and actually having it be true many times)...which taught me how to coast rather than work
2) Being raised by supportive parents who encouraged me, and being in a schooling system that did the same thing.
Now, you may wonder why I think the second would hold me back. Well, if I learn to bark when I get a treat, then in absence of a treat, I don't bark. It's that simple. Much of the work I want to do isn't prompted by anyone other than myself. So, if I have no one patting me on the head, then I speculated that I was having a hard time finding motivation after a lifetime of that unconscious reward.
For Christmas this year, my family started paying attention to my Amazon wishlist. This is a very good thing. I don't use it for gifts, but what I do do is put things on there I think are really cool. So this year, a bunch of cool things came for Christmas, and many of them were surprises. I had forgotten they were even on my list.
One of the things I got was 3Dconnexion's Space Navigator. I had probably seen it on Slashdot or Boing Boing and added it. Well, I'd been tinkering a bunch with OpenGL while learning it, so it was a good time to start playing with it.
I was able to get decent input in a few hours (a rare thing in the Linux world), and it REALLY inspired me to start hacking more at that engine. I began to think about 3D data interfaces a la William Gibson. Impractical, I know, but possibly cool and interesting for games. But seeing even something as simple as 3D spheres in space that I could move around was too inspiring for words.
I think I've written before about the difficulties I have in the software world. Much of the work that you end up doing is invisible to everyone but you and the other parties directly involved. It isn't until things show up on screen that people realize you haven't just been watching Weebl & Bob all the time, but that you've actually been making things.
Getting feedback on screen is a motivation that I've underestimated recently, and I think I need to get better at incorporating that into my work plan.
Posted by flynn at January 4, 2008 12:29 PM