On Words and Writing

I love words. Words connect us to each other and allow us to find new ways of seeing the world. Words give us strength when we cannot feel it, and hope when we cannot see it. Words help us identify, explain, and further our goals and dreams; they help us understand the goals and dreams of others. Words are fantastic.

I've spawned at least one child who would be perfectly content if we shared information in binary and just left it at that.

So, you can imagine how incredibly awful it is for us to proof or edit one another's work.

Today, he's filling out an internship application for a position (I have no idea what) doing something (again, no clue) that sounds "absolutely fascinating" to him (and which the rest of us cannot fathom doing without serious remuneration and/or cajoling). OK, that sounds bad. Honestly, I am a supportive parent. I don't have to understand what he loves to smile and nod and bring him cookies. I love that his passion is so far beyond anything I can even comprehend enjoying - it's a dead giveaway that it's wholly his, right?

Anyway, they want him to explain his interests and career goals and why he thinks this position would be beneficial in helping him further his goals. He keeps drawing a blank. He goes into bullet point mode and can't fashion a full sentence. He gets why it's important, but this part doesn't come easily. So he's toiling away, creating syntax, miserable. Meanwhile, my head is exploding with anecdotal miscellany and descriptive explanations. He insists it's not helping. I curled up with a book, thinking I'd just be nearby if he needed me to proof a turn of phrase or find just the right word. (That, too, turned out to be unhelpful, because the book is hilarious, and now there's snorfling and laughing in the background, which is probably an honest impediment. I migrated to another room. Maybe that will help.)

If he were to let me write his blurb, this is what it would say (and I'm guessing I've got much of the actual jargon wrong - he'd have to proof it, although I'm afraid just reading it would make him want to cry):

I love the satisfaction of an efficient system: fast ping rate, smooth upload times, clean data caches. Little makes me as happy as a streamlined LAN or a powerfully configured network system. These things are beautiful to me, and I appreciate them. Because the Universe has seen fit to place me in a home filled with people who tell stories and read literature instead of checking their port settings, who cannot be bothered to care what the router configuration is or whether the connection is secure, I have had the freedom to explore and create, to learn as I go. In spite of, or perhaps due to, the seeming disparity between the things I value most dearly and that which matters to my overlords, I have learned much. I have accomplished much. 

I like my code clean and crisp, my passcodes convoluted and opaque. I want to learn from the masters and know the secrets of increased uptime and of pushing our processors to their limits. I want to work among others who value the beauty of a well-designed system, and to learn from those who know what is Good. 

And this, my friends, is why Z won't let me help with his resumes, either.

So they've both kicked me out, now, and I'm just going to finish one more chapter... But maybe they'll let me help with the cover letter?

Be encouraged~
Dy