Time Scales

I stumbled across an old screenshot of text, heavily aged by its multi-generational jpeg artifacts—like looking at the stippled grain of film, telling the story from a dog’s perspective, living an entire lifetime and only catching a small span of its owner’s life.

From there, I thought of the life of those that far exceed those of human life—like a tree. What must a human’s existence seem like to a tree, slowly aging in place, as life streams around it.

My stream of thoughts continue again to my small collection of plants and how I’ve unexpectedly managed to keep them alive—my orchid continuing to bloom heavily.

Taking care of plants is like taking care of humans: small gestures performed occasionally, with the fruits of those actions only seen months or years later, wondering along the way if those actions had any effect at all.

As a parent, I provide guidance in hopes that my boys are full of the positive adjectives we want for our children. And again, it’ll be years—even decades—before I see the effect I’ve had. How many years of therapy will my kids need, as I myself have needed to understand the effect my parents had on me?

As a manager, I wouldn’t know until weeks or months later whether my direction or guidance was effective for my team. Did I provide them the right information? Did I protect them from the inane bureaucracy?

Perhaps that is one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about web development: its immediacy. I type something in one place and view its effects in another place. The reward is quick and encouraging.

Ah, the comfort of opening up that editor, typing some commands, refreshing the browser, and basking in the immediate glow of success. Or failure. Let’s be honest: lots of failure. But that failure is immediate, allowing us to course correct right away. How do I course correct as a parent or as a manager when the failure isn’t immediate or clear?

Then, your kid is being a kind parent to his kids or your team ships that new feature on time to much acclaim. We are filled with pride in their victories and in our small part in it. Watering, at the right time, when it’s needed, allows things to blossom.

Over my lifetime, I’ve found myself in a repeated cycle of starting as an individual contributor and then moving into management. (I suppose starting a family could be framed the same way!) I always felt uncomfortable as a manager. For many of those times I was pushed into management, I don’t think I was particularly good, either. I didn’t know what to do. Watering, at the wrong time, makes things harder to grow.

Thankfully, there are lots of great resources out there to make us better gardeners, better parents, and better managers—resources that either weren’t available or easily accessible twenty-plus years ago.

I, on the other hand, am happy to be an individual contributor. Just give me a to-do list and I’ll live in my little world of instant feedback while the trees (and perhaps even rocks) look on in wonder.