The Poetry of Programming

I found this great quote from Richard P. Gabriel , Lisp hacker and a poet, which summarizes nicely my feelings towards programming and how I see it as a creative field more so than technical:

“Writing code certainly feels very similar to writing poetry. When I’m writing poetry, it feels like the center of my thinking is in a particular place, and when I’m writing code the center of my thinking feels in the same kind of place. It’s the same kind of concentration. So, I’m thinking up possibilities, I’m thinking about, well, so how do I reinvent the code, gee, you know, what’s the simplest way to do this.”

– Richard P. Gabriel

Blogging as a Form of Free Writing

My blogging, or at least the topics and themes of it, has always been quite volatile, to say the least. I haven’t really ever given too much thought to it. Still, I’ve always just written about topics that interest me at the moment in question. This might be the big reason behind the fact of why the topics in this blog vary pretty heavily, all the way from geeky programming topics, to spirituality, to ranting about corporations. You could describe this kind of writing as some sort of “free writing”, a commonly used technique in creative writing.

Regarding my own creative writing, it has always been mainly in Finnish, but these blatherings that I’ve collected for this blog have been fully English. Like my blogging, I’ve never really given too much thought to my language choice here. Maybe there is a small egomaniac in me, like in every other “artist”, and I initially thought that perhaps someone really outside Finland wants to read my writings here, which is why I chose English. Who knows?

But what is this commonly used technique called “free writing”? What does it involve? Well, like the name suggests… it involves free writing. Usually time-boxed writing and usually quite raw and often unusable material. The good thing about this sort of writing is the possibility of just focusing on producing text alone without the fear of censure and with little concern for conventions and mechanics. No regard for spelling, grammar or other corrections. Free to stray off-topic and let your thoughts lead the way. Although considering this blog, my posts haven’t been this free.

Writers of any kind, prose, lyrics, or poems, often tend to be proponents for this sort of writing where you don’t need to worry about failure, deadlines or other forms of resistance. Often mentioned how it helps to “unblock” your writer’s block. Being especially beneficial when done regularly. Is there data on that? Probably. I just don’t have it. I just know how it affects me, whether it is writing incoherent blogs for my website, writing interesting, or in my case not so interesting, lyrics, or any other kind. Just writing something tends to be the biggest helper when it comes to writing anything. Shocker, I know.

Overall, when it comes to writing, it is a skill like any other, and it needs honing. You might be currently writing your next big novel. However, you can still benefit from writing without any framework, a plan, no knowing where it’ll go, no apathy, no resentment, just words on paper. Just for a short period. Maybe 15 minutes. Maybe 30 minutes. Maybe as long as you can’t think of anything, like writing in a trance. This sort of writing doesn’t focus on the product itself but more on the thought process relating to writing.

After that, try returning to your project, whatever it might be. Maybe opening and limbering this process in your mind before you start “real work” helps you. Perhaps it can direct you to places that you never thought to explore. Some might hate free writing, and some might love it.

In Praise of Public Domain Literature

I’ve been living in Berlin for under a year, which has made a small dent in my reading habits. Not necessarily anything terrible but something I haven’t been used to before. When I’m reading books here, those tend to be written in English or German, to a smaller extent, while I’m learning the language. But my native language, Finnish, is forgotten on that list. I have always read books regularly in English, but at the same time, I’ve also read those in Finnish. But now, when I’m living abroad, the availability of those books is quite limited. Especially because I mainly read in eBook format due to the practicality of those. I had loads of books when I was still living in Finland, but moving with the number of books I had was painful, to say the least. This was the biggest reason I started reading more and more eBooks. Unfortunately, it also happens that the eBook industry in Finland is not as “booming” as it is abroad, which means that most of the new books written in Finnish don’t make it to that format. So when it comes to new books, I’m pretty out of luck.

But I still want to read in Finnish, so how can I fix this? Sure with some tremendous luck, I might find a shop here in Berlin that sells Finnish books, but that is not a guarantee. Then I realized. I’ve been a big fan of Project Gutenberg , a volunteer effort to digitalize and archive many cultural works around the world focusing on works that have become public domain due to their age or other reasons. While I had been familiar with the project earlier, I had always mainly used it for English literature and works. It wasn’t until recently that I realized they also had a vast library of books in many other languages, including Finnish. Everything is published in plain text and when available in various eBook formats also.

So I wanted to make this small post of appreciation for this project and how they helped me in many ways to continue reading great works of literature in my own native language when those are not so readily available. If you’re willing, please support their project by donating or spreading the word.

Reading List

For years, I’ve been a relatively voracious reader, but for one reason or another, I’ve never really given too much thought to my reading. Sure, while I was in school, I did the occasional book report. Although considering my history at school, these probably weren’t given much thought. This has meant that I mainly just read what I enjoy, put the book away, and that’s it. Although, occasionally, on good books, I might’ve returned to them more than once.

Lately, I’ve wanted to start to change this habit, and I’ve decided to do this is to begin maintaining a reading list/queue and writing some brief notes after I’ve read the book. By these notes, I’m not talking about any summary of the topic or anything like that but more so as a way of saving thoughts and ideas about what I’ve read. Of course, this probably also means that not all books I read are worth taking notes, but at least those that I find fascinating/interesting/great will probably have these.

Since I’ve been reading about one book per week for many years, naturally, I can’t remember everything I’ve read. This is why I will probably just reread many of the books I have already read just to include those on my list. Thankfully, I only read good books, so this won’t be a chore… right? I’ve also decided to maintain this reading list online, which can be found here.

Dealing With Injuries

Climbing and training for it have been my “mainstay” for quite some time. Naturally, when I have to stay away from it, it’ll start affecting me in one way or another. Especially these last couple of years have been relatively tough in this sense since, naturally, due to COVID: I’ve had to stay away from training, mainly due to external restrictions, closed gyms, and so on. Unfortunately, alongside this, I’ve had to live with a couple of injuries simultaneously.

First, I had a nasty fall while bouldering outside in 2019. While the fall itself was similar to many other falls that I had already had during that day, this time, I just fell a little bit awkwardly on my pads and dislocated my ankle and had two minor fractures to it at the same time. Thankfully nothing too major that a cast, rest and some rehab couldn’t fix it. But the timing of this was really unfortunate since it was very close to all this COVID non-sense, which meant that gyms in Finland started to close down, which then affected my recovery a little bit since I couldn’t get back to my regular training. Thankfully I was able to recover from my ankle issues quite nicely, albeit mobility is still a little bit worse than in my other ankle, but it is usable, at least.

During 2020 and 2021, COVID in Finland was going in waves, so we had a couple of months with no cases around, and then a couple of months later, there were hundreds of cases around. So during these “good months”, gyms were open, so I could at least train a little bit. But since COVID was still very present, and the training was quite haphazard for me. Meaning during the “busy hours”, I often didn’t want to go to the gym since there were so many people around. So there wasn’t really any regularity to my training which was a shame until around the second half of 2021.

Then, of course, I had to stumble upon a new injury around the end of 2021. This time a pulley injury on my right ring finger’s A3. So again, I had to take a couple of weeks off. Again the timing was quite unfortunate since, during the same time, COVID cases were rising in Finland and gyms had to close down again. Which again hindered my recovery.

During the first half of 2022, I also moved to Berlin, so I needed to find a new gym which basically meant finding a new “community”. Thankfully, I could get back into the groove of training in the months I’ve been living here. Unfortunately, again, after a couple weeks of training, I had a minor injury. This time a minor tear/sprain on my right knee’s LCL. Thankfully this time, it should be slightly more minor than my last two injuries so it should be healed in a couple of weeks, RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate) and some physiotherapy/rehab.

Speaking only on my behalf (albeit I do believe that many other “athletes” feel the same), being on the disabled list definitely puts a toll on me. Mainly because while I’m injured, I can’t experience life the way I want. Why is it so? Of course, there are natural factors like pain and damage that will, of course, affect anyone experiencing those one way or another. Also, everything relating to those, like medical appointments.

But I would say climbing (alongside many other things like music) is part of my identity. So when I’m injured, I always feel that I’m losing some aspect of my whole identity. This kind of behaviour can often lead to a situation where the “athlete” tries to train through the injury, and often, making things only worse. Tied to this, being unable to do something that plays a significant part in your life can easily lead to hopelessness and loss of purpose.

Most importantly, I feel that connection plays the most prominent aspect in this. When “an athlete” is injured, they can often feel the loss of connection, especially if the community around your sport/activity is very tightly knit (like it tends to be in climbing, for example). So the fact that you need to sit out training sessions that you usually do with your “community” can significantly affect your mentality.

This one was especially crucial for me in these early months of 2022 since I had just moved to a new country, new town, without too much of connections (outside work at least). I already felt that I had become a part of the local climbing community, and after my injury, I already thought I couldn’t be a part of it. Thankfully in my case, the injury rehab and recovery time was relatively short, so I didn’t need to worry too much, but things could be worse.

But can you get away from this mindset? I think, first and foremost you need to respect your body and try to understand that even though you might not be able to take part in the activity that forms part of your identity, it doesn’t take anything away from it. Instead, try to focus your energy on healing and rehabbing so that eventually, when you’re healed, you can return even stronger. Also, when it comes to communal aspects of this, personally, I believe that isolating away from others is a big mistake. Instead you should try to champion others and give back to it as much as possible.