I published a piece on the ID3v2.3 spec and the curious speculation it provides on how people would use files. It had a good run on Hacker News which was fun and I figured it might but was absolutely not certain it would. Hope you enjoy it. I enjoyed making it and I enjoy working with the spec.

Nothing to promote this time, I’m not on the clock and I don’t want to put together those words right now. We just had our second child yesterday morning. He is sleeping next to me as I type this. I can’t stop smiling.

Emotion

Something I became quite good at around my teens was tamping down emotion, locking it down. Being a hard shell most of the time and releasing pressure primarily as anger. There were a bunch of reasons for this. My dad died from a heart-attack when I was 14. I was bullied throughout my childhood and teens. And there was not a lot of things in teenage life to make me less angry.

My family is very good at talking about our feelings and emotions overall though and with time and a better life I’ve had the opportunity to unclench a fair bit and be less angry. I’ve also had therapy to help with some of this. The central piece of instruction my favorite therapist gave me is “What do you feel?”, checking my gut before I let my intent or pride override it.

The locking down and putting on a stoic face is still very much something I end up doing. Part of it is masculine norms, part of it is my personal history and part of it is probably just practical. Every now and then there are things where you need to be effective, where everything is bad and you just need to get stuff done. That I think is a reasonable place to be cold, hard and do the thing. It pays off to be aware that you are deferring the emotional cost and probably incurring some interest on that payment when it comes due. You are taking on emotional debt and any debt should be taken on with awareness.

This is the same thing as when you take shit from a superior or peer at work and bite your tongue, keep it quiet. Not acknowledging and giving some kind of response based on how you feel means you are compromising on yourself. That should be done with intention. People often talking about frustrations like this as building up pressure, like a steam engine, that’ll eventually blow. Also a working metaphor but the typical means of blowing off steam is often just a paying off the interest, not paying back what you borrowed from yourself.

During particular hard moments in life, or particular frustrating things, I can feel myself disconnect emotionally. I try to be aware of when and why I do it and address it later.

More often these days though I try to stay emotionally engaged throughout the rough parts. Often it turns out that the emotionally present version of me might be less effective at packing bags or wrangling an angry child but it is also better at seeing people and recognizing what they need.

I just went through the birth of our second child with my wife. It is one of those moments when I think the norm makes me feel like I should be the practical machine. Grab the bags, drive the car, clear the way, bark for help. I certainly grabbed bags and drove car. That wasn’t what my wife most needed from me though. Being present and at her side, understanding her better than the medical staff can, talking, listening, paying attention and reacting to her needs, emotionally much more than practically. That’s what she wanted and needed as she told me afterwards and as we’ve discussed previously her and I.

This birth went exceptionally well, everyone is good. With that said. If I was in a state of mind where I try to be invulnerable to protect and help my family I would not have been as good a support. I would also have had to bring those shields down, break that ice, find my squishy center again to actually experience the joy of meeting this kid.

Very few things in my life actually benefit from being met with a hard shell. I can be intentional, directed and even forceful without shutting off. If I keep in active touch with how I feel and try to be empathetic and grasp what others feel I can be more malleable, flexible and capable. Hard things crack and shatter. Softer and more malleable things tend to deform and recover. There’s a parallel to building resilient software here as well. In the end, I typically just do better at things when I let emotion be front, center and present.

It’s a practice. I’m far from perfect. I feel like I’m doing better and better though.

Do you do the stoic thing? Has built up anger made you give up on the world, society, other things? Does any of this resonate with your experiences. Let me know at lars@underjord.io or on Twitter where I'm @lawik.

Thank you for reading this. I appreciate you spending time here.

- Lars Wikman