Losing my profession?

[Berk/Devlin <armadill -at- earthlink -dot- net>]

At 12:00 AM 6/1/01 -0700, many folks TECHWR-L digest wrote about Losing my profession?...

And I had gone through and abstracted a whole bunch of comments I wanted to respond to.  And then, my PC crashed.

But I think the point I wanted to make about anyone's chosen profession, be it skydiving or technical writing, is that:

   No matter how good you are at what you do, 
   Remember: most people can not or will not recognize the Truly Great.  

Why is this?  

Well, I could go off on an Ayn Randian rant about how most folks are just-slightly-above-average and most just-slightly-above-average people are not going to like you at all if you are even just-slightly-MORE-above-average than they are.  

But I won't stress this, because that's not the whole story.  

I also believe that most people aren't going to appreciate the Truly Great things you do because:

  Most don't actually get that you are doing some truly great things.
  Many don't care anyway.
 
Have I ever told you guys about my cousin, nicknamed, Shakespeare?  (Friends and family have always called him Shakespeare.  Totally brilliant guy and every one who spent any time near him knew it.)

When I became "aware" of Shakespeare, it was at a family picnic.  I must have been about 10 at the time.  He was sitting next to his incredibly lovely wife with his perfect children playing in the bucolic meadow nearby.  The meat smelled great on the grill and the typical family-reunion-type conversations droned on.  

Well, Shakespeare sat there, participating in a number of these conversations, while, almost-under his breath came a machine-gun-fast stream of incredible puns and hilariously weird comments on the mundane on-going discussions.  No one, NO one responded in any way to any of these.  Many of his asides just blew me away; I also knew I did not understand quite a few too.  

After about a half hour of listening, I turned to him and said, "Why do you do this?  No one gets them."  His response was to the effect of: "For myself.  And YOU got some of them, didn't you?"  Or, something like that, but more cleverly put.  (He made me know that I was special, but not on his level.)

I have been a programmer for many years; I still am in my own sandbox.  I know that there are various ways to build structures and that some structures are better than others.  I know that I, personally, have built gorgeous structures using just words.  Computers allow me to prove that to myself easily.  When I was paid as a programmer, I knew I was good, especially when I'd had some sleep.  But sleep got very scanty and I came to dislike the code I was writing at others' command.  So I left.

Technical writing is different, because what you build is harder to evaluate.  I care passionately about how words are used and I love writing them.  I usually know when I am using language powerfully and I usually know when I'm a little off.  Most of my readers don't have a clue and there's no way I can prove to them that my words are immortal or even useful.

I can't rely on others who don't care as much about my words as I do, to validate me when I'm good.  On the other hand, I count on the fact that they will not catch me on the occasional-rough sentence.  (Although I love when someone reads what I've written carefully enough to provide constructive criticism.)

This problem is not unique to technical writing.  My father was a Great Dentist.  Now that he's retired, I use another dentist, another Great Dentist (took a LONG time to find her).  When she looks at my old dental work, now twenty some-odd years on and more, she says, "Wow, great work."  But most of my father's patients never told him that he was a Great Dentist.  They had no idea that he was a Great Dentist.  They went to him because they could walk to his office when they had a toothache and he cured their problem.  All he got was the check.  However, HE knew he was a Great Dentist.

So, what should Anonymous do?  In my opinion, Anonymous needs to abandon hope of outside recognition in any profession he or she chooses.  Anonymous needs to choose a field in which Anonymous recognizes him/herself as better-than-average.  (And, yes, I agree when Ayn Rand, explicitly says, one CAN BE a Great Hamburger-Flipper.)

     The key is to do what you do 

             because ...

                      doing it 
                                 Well 
                                         makes you Happy.  

Or else, consider your job as just a job, put it in its box, and then do what you do in your spare time because doing it well makes you happy.

Which is not to say that outside recognition never comes.  But relying on it to keep you satisfied in your chosen field -- Forget about it.

--Emily

P.S. Please let's not discuss whether Ayn Rand was a Great Writer.  I won't argue this -- she wasn't.  But I love that she put her Great Ideas on paper.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~                            Emily Berk                                 ~
On the web at www.armadillosoft.com *** Armadillo Associates, Inc.      ~ 
~             Project management, developer relations and               ~
extremely-technical technical documentation that developers find useful.~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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