Space for the New
The best way to make space for the new is to challenge your assumptions about yourself, and the best way to challenge your assumptions about yourself is to make space for the new.
Donald Glover once said he wasn't a rapper, but he could rap. I believe I was in college when I heard him say this. I know I wasn't on campus at the time because I was in a hotel room. I know I was in a hotel room because he was on a talk show and I've never watched a talk show anywhere but in a hotel room.
In 2023 I started learning to build websites. Before that, I’d assumed the people who could code were the same people who were good at math, and I was never good at math, and moreover I was bad at it, and moreover I still am. It's true that in most kinds of programming it helps to have a mathy sort of a brain, but websites are written with HTML and CSS, the languages that dictate content and style, and the results they produce are by and large static. Writing HTML is programming in the sense that you are giving instructions to a computer, but since there’s little formal logic involved, it’s usually not what people mean when they use the word. So while it helps to have a mathy brain in some types of programming, there are other types where it’s less important, only I didn't know that because I’d made certain assumptions about programming and programmers and never bothered to find out if those assumptions were correct.
As it turns out, I like building websites, but I only figured that out because I got so fed up with writing that I decided to try something completely different. It would have been much easier to break that mold if I'd understood that it wasn't a mold at all; that writing was not something I was but something I did—I wasn’t a writer, but I could write—and if it's often the case that we can't choose what we are, it is almost always the case that we can choose what we do.
Self-definition puts a cap on your potential. By telling yourself what you are, you tell yourself what you are not. If you think, “I'm ABC, therefore I can't do XYZ,” then you won't even try to do XYZ, and you’ll never discover what you can (or can’t) do.
The best way to break this cycle is to try new things. What's fun about trying something new is that you'll learn about so much more than just the new thing. When I started learning to build websites, I spent a lot more time surfing the Internet, and because I spent a lot more time surfing the Internet, I read a lot more blog posts, and because I read a lot more blog posts, I found sites like gwern.net, and because I found sites like gwern.net, I discovered ideas like spaced repetition and tools like Anki, and because I discovered ideas like spaced repetition and tools like Anki, I had the intellectual confidence to continue learning web development, and because I had the intellectual confidence to continue learning web development, I wasn’t as afraid anymore of trying new things, and because I wasn't as afraid anymore of trying new things, doors opened that I never knew were there, I met people I never would have met, I learned things I never would have learned, and I had experiences I never would have had.
It’s okay—and probably, at some point, necessary—to have a focus, but it is just as okay, and just as necessary, to make space for the new. The best way to make space for the new is to challenge your assumptions about yourself, and the best way to challenge your assumptions about yourself is to make space for the new.
I’m not a writer, but I can write. I’m not a programmer, but I can build websites. What else am I not? What else can I do?
Perhaps because it is Passover this week and I attended Seders Saturday and Sunday- but the central paragraph here reminds me very much of the Passover song “dayenu.” One thing leads to another and though not everything is necessary for a satisfying life, everything contributes to that life, often in unexpected ways.