compulsive coding
I love programming, but I also think I do it compulsively. It's hard to stop when I'm working on a problem, even if I can feel myself declining mentally (getting stressed or anxious, not being able to think clearly or make decisions easily).
And I can feel when it comes from a place of inspiration and when it comes from a place of compulsion. Today it was the latter. I did some good work that I'm quite proud of.
Got my login working on ReedyBear.com so I can edit pages through the web browser.
And I made major updates to my user login library to make it easier to setup for future websites. Something I was kind of trying NOT to do, because I want to be focused on just reedybear.com and what I specifically need.
I set up user login already, so I shouldn't need an easier setup process.
But I dream about freelance web dev, and foss libraries other people will use.
(Also, I was thinking about code and the specific idea I had to improve the user login setup was exciting or compelling to me. I felt strongly about working on that specific idea.)
I want to make a really nice self-hostable website platform for creators, for people like me. Literally I want to make the perfect website for myself and then make it free and open source so other people can use it.
But I also want to maybe provide a platform for setting up those websites, and essentially I'd be a webhosting reseller. (then why not just find a deal with a webhost to offer the software as a service, like wordpress is done?)
I also want to build websites for small nonprofits for less than $500 up front and less than $50 per year.
So eventually, I want this software to feed that. And if I'm putting up websites for NFPs, I need an easier setup process.
And if I'm making this available as FOSS, it needs an easier setup process.
So that's my rationale. That's my justification. But I don't know why there's such a strong need to DO that.
My vision makes sense, I think. But why do I feel so strongly that I need to go in that direction? Why do I need to program? What is the source of the compulsion?
One possibility is that it takes my focus and I don't think or stress about other things.
Another is addiction to coding.
Another is a genuine passion and belief in my vision.
It might be all three of those, and maybe more.
I want a therapist to talk to about this stuff, but I got kicked because of Lifestance Health. That's a story for another day.