Winter Break Of Code Day Seventeen

In this life nearly every relationship we create and maintain is built upon expectations. You do this, I’ll do that, and together we’ll fail to oppose entropy but stand a chance at plotting and navigating a loose course through it. These expectations extend beyond the individual, past the family, and onto society.

You do the English homework, I’ll do the math, and then we’ll share answers. You stay in school, we’ll provide you with housing, and then you need to find a job. You work your job, I’ll work mine, they’ll all work theirs, and together we’ll gain confidence from the popularity of our shared compromises.

These expectations and their resulting compromises make sense in the context that most of us exist, the course we’re navigating together. But every one of us has a hand on the same tiller so no one is steering, and the course we die navigating is often not our own. In the rare situations where our course is brought to question we find a strange comfort here, “but it wasn’t my idea” – yes, much of this wasn’t my idea and it wasn’t yours, that’s a tragedy.

Who came up with the idea that the few years we spend in college should dictate everything that will come for us in the future? Who came up with the idea that this same time should be the only socially acceptable time for experimentation. Who came up with the idea that college should be both expected and inaccessible? It wasn’t me and it wasn’t you so what follows logically should be mutiny or abandonment, it’s all the same at first.

I abandoned ship in Spring of 2013 after returning from the first Open Whisper Systems Break of Code. Since then I’d like to think that I’ve become a better developer but I’m now equally concerned with getting better at mutiny. Mutiny because our relationships with individuals are now proxied through internet giants, subject to international law, and centered around coping with their expectations. Mutiny because coping with their expectations takes at least as much time and arguably more energy.

We can study, cheat on our homework, or throw the teacher overboard, but let’s not betray our desires.

– rhodey orbits, laughing.

January 29th, 2015

Kauai, HI