I want to learn from you

1

Dear all,

I have been lurking around this forum for quite a while. I am not depressed (except, sometimes, but that’s what I think is “normal”). I don’t have ADHD. I can focus and work hard, make a living from programming and sometimes even writing. In general, you could say I live a good live, with some tough fights in between, which mostly worked out well. I was suffering from boredom, incompetence, burn-out, failed businesses and I sometimes have hard times to accept how people act and react.

When I was about to fail fast, I found into Zen. I wrote a book called “The Zen Programmer”. I learn about it for ten years but actively practice for seven years. In my prime time, I study psychology. Time constraints prevented to get graduate, but hey, I learned lots, and it’s fun.

I have spoken to a lot of depressed people around me. In our current culture, depression seems to be normal on the one hand and a sign of weakness on the other one. Depends on who you ask.

While I can learn about the theory of depression, it is hard for me to understand the actual, real world implications for the person who suffers from it (also ADHD or other). I would like to learn what that means. I would like to understand how you feel, and I would like to know what additional problems your environment causes for you.

What I learn should either become part of my next book, blog or podcast. I am undecided yet.

I would like to invite you to talk to me about how you feel, your issues, pains and problems in the technology world. I would like to learn what non-depressed people could do better. I would like to understand. In return, I can respond from my experiences as a senior developer, what I have learned from Zen and what I have learned from my studies in general.

Please note:

  • I cannot give medical or psychological advise. I am not a doctor, nor do I have a grade in the related fields. I am just an interested and curious guy, with whom you can share a digital beer
  • I will not publish your name or anything that might help to identify you without you allowing me to do so. In the example, I will not share your name or your companies name. However please know, that I may use what I have learned from you to write a text (or a podcast) which will be public.
  • If you ask for advice, I will try to give one. Again, please note that I cannot give any guarantees. I can tell you from my experience and will gladly share you more personal things that I not have published yet on the net
  • If you hook up to talk to me, I am happily giving you a free copy of my book

If this sounds appealing to you and wants to speak to another dev, feel free to ping me at hello@zenprogrammer.org. For the talks I plan to use Skype (preferred) or Google Hangouts. Other suggestions welcome.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to respond here or write me an email.

Thank you in advance for reading this, and an another “thank you” if you consider allowing me learning from you.

Regards,

Christian

2

Your book seems like an interesting one, and is also appears to be well-liked by those who’ve read it. I’ve lived with depression for most of my adult life, but only in more recent years have I been diagnosed and treated for it. Some of your interests and concerns are the same as mine. In the past, my fear of being exposed as mentally ill led to quite a bit of denial. But I had been able to function at a high level when I felt I was in an emotionally supportive work environment.

When I unexpectedly lost that sense of support, performing well became a much more difficult endeavor for me, and so, as a result, I endeavored to garner some understanding of the larger context of the workplace ecosystem, and somehow make sense of the scary unknowns therein. I embarked on a multi-year effort to acquire and read a lot of business books, hoping to somehow map the psychodynamics of that larger ecosystem by compiling and linking notable quotes from those books. It remains a work in progress:

Concept diagram
Depression

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I might also point out that, unlike your book ventures, I’m not looking to make any money on my workcreatively.org website, and that’s why you’ll see the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license there.

4

Thank you @WorkCreatively for sharing. I would love to speak more with you about this, if you have the time.

On another note: please know that I give my book away for free if for some reason you cannot effort to buy it. It’s also mentioned on my books web page. My word still holds. I actually gave away a couple of books. All you need to do is to write me an email and tell me about your situation.