alt Hacker NewsPerhaps this is the wrong place to plant this thought. Maybe nobody will read it. These comments are now many hours old and HN has a way of walking away once they have had their turn shouting into the void.
I once received a "bonsai" seed kit from a former boss during a holiday dinner. I think it was meant as a joke, but even now I'm not so sure. I planted those seeds anyway. I told some people about it and they immediately mocked me saying it was a waste of time and going to take 30 years. This interaction immediately said everything to me about the expectations and attitudes of others.
Obviously, they grew like any other plants and actually quite nicely. Of course they're a commitment, but not a huge one.
I just wanted some plants for my apartment and they fit the bill. In a few years I had good looking plants. A decade later, I still have them and they're now more recognizably "bonsai". My home now looks nicer, I have a story to tell, and I learned a little bit from a very low stakes hobby.
My point is, I think it's nice when people have projects. I think it's nice to see what comes of it. I guess my only regret is ever saying "I planted bonsai" too soon just because that's what the box said. I didn't know how else to describe what I had done that weekend to those people who threw theirs in the trash.
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I was thinking the other day about how frustrated my desire is to perform some kind of Great Work. A few years back I was intensely interested in making something like Nethack - a roguelike game with a deceptively simple surface and incredible complexity in the engine. I worked on several for a few years, different angles on the whole "managing complexity" thing. I suppose I learned a lot, and I made some interesting things, but I never really produced anything I felt I could work on for 20-30 years, that would be sort of my artistic statement as an engineer (if such a thing makes any sense).
I wouldn't've laughed at you. I view bonsai as a representation of steadfastness, endurance, determination, effort, (and self-mastery?) in the face of tremendous hardship, challenge, and deprivation. That said, I've never been particularly good at any of those things.
IDK if I would've taken you all that seriously either, though. Six months until you move and it's left behind on the curb. Or a year and a half until your cat knocks it off the windowsill. Or three years until some blight infects it and it dies off despite your best efforts. Eight years until, for whatever reason, it just succumbs to some kind of vegetative ennui. Nine years until your significant other overwaters it one too many times and the roots rot.
That's not meant disrespectfully. I just tend to view uncertainty and complexity as opportunities for shit to go sideways. Especially in this case, where it's unlikely you'll wake up to find your tree has spontaneously cloned itself, or has eaten a 1-UP mushroom. Disasters happen all the time, and miracles don't.
I suppose I'm just having a bit of a spiritual crisis right now. But thank you for your comment. It gives me a lot to think about, in a positive sense.
that's a great story!
> Maybe nobody will read it. These comments are now many hours old and HN has a way of walking away once they have had their turn shouting into the void.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring