The Mask I Wear

I didn't have a ordinary child hood growing up as a pastor's kid. I was forced to go to church everyday against my will regardless of whether I wanted to go or not. Sometimes I had to go when I was under the weather and that wasn't just me my sister had to go as well. After the church there was always this point where my Dad would pray for the congregation individually. He would say these amazing prophetic things over people. God says that you're called to heal the sick, God says you're running from your problems, God says that you were called to sing. 

I would sit there at the drums playing the music setting the atmosphere for these long prayer sessions. You wouldn't believe how time can fly by when you playing the same beat 75bpm after you hit 5 or 6 measures 20, 30 minutes /s. I'd wait until there was only one person left then, I would stand up from my seat at the drums stand in line with the other people; my sister still playing on the organ. Person after person he'd say:  healing for their kid, god calls you to be a minister. At last it was my turn he would lay his hands on me and then he said words that to this day "Lord touch my son". 

THAT'S IT? 

THAT'S ALL GOD HAD FOR ME? You had so much to say for all these people but the man of God, MY FATHER, has nothing prophetic for me. That was truly when I realized that God might not be real. All the time I'd spend is church but ? Yet people who have never set foot in this church could be great things. This would happen for years and then I realized that at that time my father didn't really believe in me the way he said he did other people. 

I could tell you some stories like so many stories about my life that wouldn't paint my family in a great light. However my goal of this blog isn't to create a smear campaign of why my home life. I love my family and despite my upbringing they've since apologized for a lot of the bullshit I went through growing up. 

Present Day

Little did I know that this attitude would prepare me for how my life would go. Especially as a developer working with other developers who have to have things done a specific way. Think to yourself would it be okay if an entire python team where half the team preferred tabs and the other half preferred spaces. 

I can't tell you how many times as a developer I was forced to rewrite my code because I don't solve problems in the way they'd like me to. As a developer I understand that if you were to start writing functional code in a team where people prefer object oriented code that could cause confusion but I shutter at the idea of someone telling me to rewrite something because they don't like or understand it. Especially when they don't even ask why did I take this approach. It's this is bad and you should write it the way I wrote it. 

Diversity isn't just about people hiring people who look differently than you, it's about hiring people who think differently than you too.  Can you hire someone who has a different coding style and philosophy than you do? Can you think outside the box? Can you keep things civil enough that you can come to an understanding even if you don't see eye to eye? To me what makes you a good developer is when you can accommodate other people's coding styles to make cohesive product that others want and enjoy using.

It's not just tech but I not too long ago had to leave a heavy metal band. I'm a drummer and I've been drumming for a couple years. However drumming for other people is such a fucking headache some people will tell you don't play fills, or I don't play the pocket right. Which for those not in music playing pocket is essentially the most basic beat you hear in a song it's hard to describe in words. When I was with this metal band I didn't know how to count or read music, so in the song and they had the nerve to not call me a real musician. I eventually did learn but I left the band before that happened.

For a long time I've played music by ear and there was never a need to learn to play to a metronome. Now I love playing with a metronome and I can read music better than I could too. If they had been patient with me I definitely could have met their expectations of what a good musician can be. I'm not a lesser musician because I don't know the basics of music I think it says more about how far of come despite not knowing some of the basics in actuality. 

Despite all the stuff I try to remain positive.

However I often get overlooked for promotions and people don't really listen to me. I often feel invisible. I learn all day about animals, tech, ai, the stock market, and I have a lot of information to share. However I spend most of my days just not saying anything or adding to the conversation. People often say that I'm a very quiet person but truthfully I'm quiet because I don't want to be told I don't care about what you're saying or worse to be quiet. 

I do my best to smile through it but truthfully it is killing me because I feel like I don't really have a place where I truly belong or have a place where I can really be myself. I have given up on the idea that I could advance my career by getting that lead developer position I just sit on my senior developer position and just really construct my own projects. 

Conclusion

I created this website not just because I wanted to get better at front end development but this was one of the few times where I can decide everything and nobody can sit there and tell me to change it. I don't have to go through a manager to beg for someone to let me put in this feature. I can just do what I want.

Truthfully as of December 2024 this is the most sophisticated project I've built due to it using serverless, having analytics built in, having automated deployments, CSS animations, and monitoring/logging. I am a good developer and drummer even if others don't recognize me as one. Not to mention half of my website is indexed in google I almost forgot to mention that which is a real accomplishment for me. I wasn't good at search engine optimization but all the changes I've made to my website have made me better for search engines.