Hi, I'm Zack
Half coder, half poet
Whole human slinging rhyme schemes
and venture capital pitches,
ditching distant capital cities
staying up too late
doubling the candle's burn rate
while trying to keep the ends from meeting.
There's never nearly enough time
to do all the things I want to do
as well as they deserve doing.
But that's the crux of the issue, right?
Limited rotations around this earth,
only so many sets of ten thousand hours
to spend becoming an expert
scared of ending up a dilettante or worse,
too many changes of course
might mean missing dessert.
Am I just the sum of my life's work?
I'm feeling tied down by this cash purse
wondering how much is this net worth
if the things that slip out
are the ones I should put first.
But on the flip side of this verse
I've stayed true to my adverse reaction
to suit jackets and starched shirts
Even when it hurt I've been honest with myself
willing to return the hats that don't fit to the shelf
to reforge my best self
from the alloys of my meltdowns
Like walking away from a good job
with a degree in English and no answer
to "what are you going to do with that"
after too many night shifts working retail
cold nights unloading box trucks
in the wake of 2008 and too big to fail
Instead I set my sights on the California goldrush
but kept my own set of heroes
skipped the flyover states
and applied my lyricism to ones and zeros
from stacking boxes to full stack
thankless long hours to thankful longer ones
from safe bet to betting the farm
from free time to time warp
from hard choices to hard work
learned that goal setting is its own reward
when the new checkboxes were too high
for my last list to even hope for
There are still some days when I long to be a poet.
And there are better days when I know I already am.
And even when I wish whole-heartedly I'd been an astronaut
I know that traipsing across the moon
there'd be a world of things I'd long to do
So with a clear mind I welcome every hard step
and smile that the path I walk is one I choose.
-- see the commit history here.