STOP! Don’t read further. Read this article instead: Putting thought into things
I was crushed by this article. So totally crushed.
I started this blog in order to separate my technology explorations from my main blog (which I have abandoned anyways), focusing on more human thoughts. Put now I feel obliged to put these thoughts here, even though it’s not touching any fancy CSS architecture techniques or flashy new TYPO3 Neos. This post is here, because all of us, web junkies, are humans too, and need to be reminded of that more often.
A few flashbacks.
Me in the 7th grade. Skipping Literature and History, contemptuously saying I don’t need none of that humanities stuff, I’m becoming a computer engineer! And indeed I have become… Sort of. Then things would spin faster and faster. First job at an ISP company, in love with Unix, reading tons of book, feeling really smart and proud. Then switch to being a web master in some travel agency. Again the same story, reading piles of books on web standards, TYPO3, browsing CSSZenGarden. Working hard, feeling like I worth some shit. Technologies change, the principle remains the same: consume some new technology, then feel smart.
10 years gone by, and now I ask a question: does my knowledge really worth shit? All this array of technology has made me to care deeper for people I’m designing for? Not really.
Have I really been thinking during the course of my IT career? Even if I did, it was not often, and it happened when I stepped out of bounds of my IT competencies and workflows into world of humans I’m designing websites for.
Consuming the pretty packaged fruits of progress, all this flashy frameworks and CMS’, mastering most high level abstractions ain’t shit without love and deeper care for the one who you do it for: your user. “Love thy user/neighbor as thyself”, the Bible says, and it’s damn hard to follow. It’s a pain, to care about someone as much as you care for yourself.
You know, there’s that old test: what would you do if you only had one week of life left? I’m one of few people who can answer: I’d continue to do my work. But the quality would be different. I would think more, I would listen. I would concentrate on The Story our websites are trying to tell, leaving technology to be its means, not the aim. I would focus on being a storyteller. The Storyteller would approve of that, I am sure.
And one last thing. Why am I writing this? It’s the cure. Cure from technology consumerism and thoughtlessness.