I Just Want to Code

Summary

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...