Obsession

Lately I have been dealing with a powerful obsession. My own father has remarked then when I pick up a new hobby, I jump in with both feet and immerse myself in it. This has happened with sailing and more recently rock climbing. It consumes my spare time and pretty much every waking moment until I accomplish some specific task. Then I can relax to focus on other parts of my life. Many years ago, this is how I got through college.

Obsessions can be bad if one focuses on a harmful thing like alcohol or drugs. They can also be good if one is trying to make the world a better place. This is how wonderful technologies have been invented. It took sincere devotion for two guys to work in their garage to create a new device that revolutionized the computer industry and brought personal computing to the masses. We know the company they created as Apple.

Fast forward a few years and a software engineer working at CERN in Switzerland saw a need for people to share information. In order to solve the problem he developed 3 key technologies that are ubiquitous today: hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), web addresses, and hypertext markup language (HTML). Because of his obsession we now have the World Wide Web which greatly simplified the Internet and made it usable for the masses.

There are countless other examples of engineers working tirelessly to solve problems that have changed the world for the better. They are able to focus for long periods of time, not worrying about food or sleep and end up accomplishing the seemingly impossible. So when you see someone obsessing about a technical problem, know that there could be tremendous good that comes from concentrated thought. As for me, my current obsession won't change the world but it also isn't hurting me either. I'm just hoping ski season gets going here pretty soon.