Z: Doesn’t She Look Good

Anyone who has a hobby would understand the satisfaction of completing something on which he or she enjoyed working. It doesn’t always look marketable, it doesn’t always look fashionable, it doesn’t always look picture-worthy. But it always looks good to the creator. Anyone who has a job would understand that that is never enough. Anything that looks good only to its creator has little value to the rest of the world and is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. That is partly why we work hard. As creators of beauty, we want to share our creation with the rest of society and want society to find value in our work.

Over the past 2 months, I have created a virtual machine that emulates the AEMB on QEMU with basic IO support. I think it looks good. I think it that others think it looks good too. How do I have this confidence? Well, my code works. My code is modular. My code is documented. My code is expansible. My code…rocks.

I wonder about why I feel so happy when my code works or does what I want it to do elegantly. I wonder why I feel proud of my code. I wonder why I am willing to spend long periods of time typing away—sometimes not even typing but thinking and probing inspiration to hit me. Could this be passion?

define: passion
1 OBSOLETE: suffering
2 a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept

It’s interesting how we forget that passion used to mean suffering. It probably inherited the modern-day meaning because people attributed the willingness to undergo such suffering to devotion and strong desire; yet passion will not forget that it means suffering. There will be endless nights and heartless cruelty, unseen tears and hidden frailty. Creators still go on with what they do. Regardless of what comes their way, those who have passion continue to tread the unwalked path and swim the uncharted waters…so that some day, the work of their hands will be seen as something precious and valuable to the world.

The work of my hands is, by the way, never complete. I can only make sure that what I can do is usable and presentable at each stage of ‘completion’. Does she look good? I think so. Yes, I do.