I just want to code

I have an angel and a devil sitting atop each shoulder. The angel says, "Just code for fun! What you make can be just for your enjoyment and that's --" the devil interjects, "not enough to get ahead, loser. If you're not coding your next startup then how're you gunna get rich? Coding for fun? Pfft, sounds like the fast lane to being poor."

Since I was a kid I've always gravitated toward computers. First sucked in via computer games, then Lego NXT Robots, then turtles, then high school Java, and finally a college degree. It always starts off as some form of play, and before I know it I've learned something new. At 8 years old, I played Age of Empires III only to get suckered into learning how to fix the install on Windows. In 6th grade I built a Lego machine gun using the Lego NXT robotics and learned how to program using blocks. In 8th grade I used turtles to make cool designs.

But I also grew up consuming hustle porn. I loved reading Wired and Entreprenuer magazine and dreamed of being on the cover. For 2 years in highschool I so desperately wanted to attend Babson College to enroll in their entreprenuership program. I watched an Amazon Prime knockoff of Silicon Valley called Betas and unironically wanted to be like the "visionary" social media startup founder who was founding yet another doomed social media platform. Now I'm on Twitter/X & Hacker News, which of course mainline these capitalist ideals straight to my brain.

So I've cultivated the angel, and the devil. The angel motivated by curiosity, a sincere desire to learn and improve, and most of all have fun. The devil motivated by power, money, status.

I constantly find the devil on my shoulder trying to convince me to start a new side hustle. Starting a new monetizable side project is like a latent addiction. Giving in feels like relapsing. The angel says don't worry about some side hustle, just do well in your day job and code for fun as a hobby. But the devil keeps telling me that you can "be your own boss" and "earn what you're worth".

In a perfect world, I could listen to the angel and solely get by having fun and working on things I enjoy. But if I didn't listen to the devil from time to time, I wouldn't stay up to date with the latest technologies, and as a result I wouldn't be able to pay my bills.

Typically, the devil is associated with worldly material things, whereas angels are associated with high ideals, such as curiosity, enlightenment, and purity. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, so the devil on my shoulder will never be vanquished. Which means that instead, this will always be a story of managing the devil, and learning when and when not to listen to him.

I've learned now, that I can no longer force myself to work on things that I don't like forever, since I will burn out. As I mature, I am better honing perception for when and when not to give in to the devil's call to build something for profit.