Today's episode of developer Tea is a personal episode with Michael Chan and today we're digging into faith, life and difficult situations. I challenge you as you're listening to part 1 of this week's two-part episode is to ask yourself how you would answer these same questions. Check out more about Michael Chan via his Twitter profile: @chantastic
Today's episode of developer Tea is a personal episode with Michael Chan and today we're digging into faith, life and difficult situations. I challenge you as you're listening to part 1 of this week's two-part episode is to ask yourself how you would answer these same questions.
Check out more about Michael Chan via his Twitter profile: @chantastic
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Today's episode of Developer Tea is a personal episode. It's an interview with Michael Chan. And on the episode, we're going to be talking about personal experiences and kind of vulnerable topics, things like faith and money. And some of these things may feel a little bit uncomfortable to listen to on the podcast. We are a little bit more open on this episode than is typical of the show, but I encourage you to stick around and consider the ways that you would respond to the same questions, the same situations that we discuss on the show. My name is Jonathan Cattrell and you're listening to Developer Tea. And my goal on this show is to help driven developers like you connect to your career purpose and do better work so you can have a positive influence on the people you love. And I'm going to be talking about some of the things that you can do to help you around you. And one of the things that you have to do in order to have that connection to your own purpose and to understand yourself well is to be able to kind of dive in and wrestle with difficult questions, difficult situations, and to, you know, walk through those more difficult times in your career and your personal life. And so that's some of the stuff that we're talking about in today's episode. I hope you enjoy it. Enjoy my interview with Michael Chan. Michael, thank you for coming on the show. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. So people will know you on Twitter as Chantastic. I guess the first order of business is where did that come from? Oh, man. It's been with me for a really long time. I used to do photography with a friend of mine. And I had, it was just, I can't remember what it was before. I think it was mine and my wife's name. It was Michael and Nellie. And we had a whole, we had an intersection of friends and all of their friends were from Australia. And Australians are just hilarious people. I love them. And they all called me Chantastic. And I was like, that's kind of awesome. I love that. And so one day after someone said it, I was like, that's it. I'm changing my Twitter name. And it just, it stuck. And I get really disheartened. And sad. When I, when I can't get that, that username on a network, I'm just like, this network's dead to me. It's never going to take off. It's terrible. That's excellent. The, yeah, so that was, that was the first thing that I noticed when I, when I got a message from a coworker of mine to go and watch a talk. And, you know, he's this particular coworker. He's very thoughtful individual. John O'Tander. I'm not sure if you're, if you know John or not. No, not yet. So John is the author of Tachyons and quite a few other things he's working on. Okay. Yeah. Yep. So he's working on a MDX deck and a few other projects in the React world. So he sent me your talk and you know, he doesn't really do a lot of link sharing. He's, he's not the overshare by any means. And so I, I watched the talk, I believe it was called a hot garbage code or I'm going to say it wrong is dead. What was the name of the talk again? Yeah. Hot garbage clean code is dead. And I just remembered, I do know John online. I have to see pictures. I'm like so bad at the, uh, the name thing. Oh, I'm awful at it. I'm probably going to forget the, the reason I remember your name is because it's not a normal, like I remember Chantastic. Yeah. I don't remember first and last names. I remember handles better anyway. Totally. Absolutely. So I'd love to ask you when we get kicked off on the show with, with guests, uh, I used to, ask this question towards the end and it's a question I ask all the guests that come on the show, but I've learned that it actually is a better one to ask earlier because it could drive some of our conversation. And that is, what do you wish more people would ask you about? Oh man. You know, something that I love to talk about, but I find hard is faith and its intersection with tech. My friend, Henry Zhu, who maintains Babbel, he is really open about this and it's something that I envy about him. I think I'm always fearful to really out myself as a religious person, particularly as a Christian, just because we're in a news cycle right now where there's a lot of misunderstanding and I feel like there's a lot of misunderstanding. And I feel like there's a lot of misunderstanding. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding there. And I think that the Christian faith is kind of figuring its, finding its footing again. And yeah, I do wish that people would ask me a little bit more about that. I'm not totally open about it. I hint at it sometimes. But yeah, I think I enjoy talking about it. I think I struggle just as much as anyone else with kind of the concept in the abstract of faith, but also just the, the nitty gritty of it, of kind of living it out and what does that, what does that look like? And trying to make it real and relevant and, you know, living in the good parts and loving people. And yeah, I don't know. I like talking about it, but sometimes it can be hard in, in our particular community. I think this is so interesting and this is something that you and I have a pretty strong overlap on. I feel very similarly. I also, I identify as a Christian, but that word is, as we were discussing just briefly before the show for full transparency, everybody, you know, that word carries a lot of meaning and like anything else with language, it's really hard. It's really hard to adequately describe, you know, your entire belief set and, and do so with a single word that means so many different things to some. Yeah. And, and to some people it means something that is incredibly oppressive and hateful and, and that's not untrue for them and for a lot of people. And yeah, it's like some of these words, they get to be so overloaded. And I think a lot of times that's why we try to invent new words for things and infuse them with, with new meaning and, you know, fresh ideas. But yeah, I agree. It's just a very, it's, it's a conversation that's easy to walk away from because there's just a lot of required nuance in having it. And I don't know, I feel really fortunate when I get to have that conversation, especially with people that you wouldn't assume would have complimentary worldviews. I've always felt really great the times that we've been able to talk honestly and kind of come, come to a common understanding and learn from each other. It's, it's great. I like having the opportunity to share that in a kind of like surprising way, not because I'm a glutton for drama, but instead because I think it's like, it's a little bit more of a, um, a more authentic moment to be able to share something about yourself that perhaps wasn't immediately assumed. Right. I mean, we all, and the reason for that is not just because, you know, um, of this specific subject, but really anything about us. Um, people are very unique and deeply intricate. And that's one of the beautiful things about life is that, you know, you can't just sum up a person with a single dimension. It's easy to try that. And it's easy to see a single dimension when you look at, you know, any given stereotype, for example, uh, in, in tech, especially, right. You can really compress a lot of the otherwise really dynamic things about a person down into these, uh, reductive and ultimately harmful definitions. And that's certainly not just about Christians. And I should be very clear that, you know, Christian culture for a very long time has been very privileged. And I think that's part of the reason why this is a difficult conversation to have is, um, you know, when you're in a, position of privilege, um, anything hinting at a direction where you, you know, you wish you could have this conversation more, I think people will immediately assume that, well, you've had your chance at this conversation enough, right? Why do you need to share it anymore? And I think it's less about me needing to share my, um, you know, my view or my belief. And it's for me, at least it's more about me being an authentic Christian. And I think it's more about me being an authentic you know, true version of who I am and wanting the same for everyone else. Yeah. And, and hoping that we can develop a culture together that respects individuals for who they are and gives them a space to be that. Yeah, I absolutely a hundred percent agree. I remember the first time that I spoke with someone, um, I had met someone at a conference and we ended up kind of talking about religion. I can't even remember why, but I remember that. And I remember them being surprised that I was a Christian who just wanted to listen and not convert them. And it was, it was kind of bizarre to me because I'm, I am not the like converting type on pretty much anything. Like I, I, I don't care if you use this thing or the other thing, whatever, like you do you, right. But, um, except react, of course. I mean, I don't know. Go ahead. But yeah, so it was, it was surprising to me. And, it kind of made me realize how sad it is that it's a conversation that most people can't have for fear that, you know, they're, they're going to get judged or going to have to like say no, like as if I'm selling, you know, something to them at their front door or whatever. And, um, I just, I don't know. I, I want to be able to talk about it. Like every other thing that we get to talk about that is, is kind of not taboo. Uh, money is another thing that, you know, a lot of people don't talk about, which is just, ridiculous to me. We should, we should all be talking about money and like how to make it and how to keep it. And, you know, we're working so hard for it. Right. Well, I mean, we talk about the things that we buy, right. So like that is, if you back trace it, if you do enough work, uh, to find out like, what are the 10 things that this person bought today? And then you extrapolate across the year, you can probably guesstimate about how much that person makes a year. So it's a, it's kind of this weird veil that we, that we put over it. Yeah. I, I, I've always, I've always enjoyed talking about taboo things. And I think the older that I get, the more I realized that, um, you don't have to talk about like just really fringe, weird, uh, bizarre stuff in order to have a conversation that feels taboo. I mean, things that affect our life every day, like money and religion are, um, are conversations that we're all kind of walking around the edges of. Yeah. I think, I think a lot of that is the result of this singular perspective. Right. That, um, my version is the best version. And this is, this is natural for people to do, by the way. And, you know, we shouldn't necessarily blame the person for it as much as we should work to find better ways to deal with those, those singular perspectives. I mean, that is kind of the idea, uh, the, the, the, the concept of conversion is based on this, this idea that I know what's better for you than, you know, evolution. And I think that, that is really damaging and, and it's really, it's really harmful because, you know, if we start talking about money immediately, and this is, this is something that's built into our brains. Like this is the kind of thing we talk about on the show all the time. Immediately our brains are comparing. That's our immediate reaction. When we start talking about money, everything that we're doing is figuring out where we stand in the pack. Yeah. And that's a shame, isn't it? Yeah. I, I completely agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I I think I saw a tweet early on. I can't remember who it was by, but he was saying something about how Twitter is just all of, all of us trying to convince everyone else that we deserve a seat in the lifeboat. And I think it's true. Like we just, we all want to be clever and funny and smart. And I feel like a lot of the networks that we have are amplifying the how much we're different and not giving us an opportunity to realize how much we're the same. You know, we all have to eat several times a day. We all like, like to, I don't know. I don't even know. I'm struggling to find a way, but every time I sit down with someone, no matter how different I think that we are, there's always some common ground. And I always find that I have a flawed opinion about that person. Because of how they have identified and all of the baggage that I have around the, the words that they used. And I just, I want to be someone who, who understands that every person is unique and no matter what banner they, they, they walk under, they have their own story. They have their own thoughts about the things that they believe in the things that they do. And that's all interesting. And how they got there is an amazing thing to walk into and discover. And I think those things, like the way that we get to the destination is oftentimes like super similar, you know? And I just, I don't know. I just want to find those like commonalities a lot of times. Well, you mentioned that, you know, everybody has their own interests. I, a good friend of mine told me this. I think he probably stole it from somebody. We always do. Yeah. And he said to, to look at, to look at people, not in light of their, of your differences, but in light of their pain, this concept is that, you know, we all have struggles. Everybody is fighting something. Yeah. Everybody's fighting different, like even, even, and it's easy to demonize people based on their status or, you know, based on their wealth. For example, we often look at celebrities that are complaining and we say, Oh, how can you possibly complain? You own your own, own personal jet, right? And on, on one hand, that's totally understandable for us to be appalled at this, you know, this human emotion that's coming out of a human that is unbelievably, unbelievably privileged, right? Yeah. All the stars aligned for that person. And yet they're still complaining. And yet at the same time, everyone approaches life. We all have the same amount of time in a day. We all breathe the same air and we all feel, we all feel pain in our context, types of pain. And so if we invalidate another person and another person's pain, another person's experience, we're forgetting that, you know, we share this, this human element, regardless of, you know, the specifics, right. Regardless of whatever going on around us, whatever bit of luck we had or didn't have, everyone is fighting a battle. Yeah. My, um, I, I've heard it put kind of like similarly that pain, um, pain is like a smoke, smoke detector, right. In, in your house. And it doesn't matter if, oops, sorry, hold on a second. Good. My, my computer went to sleep and I was worried that it might've stopped things. No problem. Okay. I'll start over. Um, yeah, I have heard it put similarly that pain is like a smoke detector and in your house it could be going off because there's a legitimate fire or you burnt the toast. And, and, and, and we can't diminish, we can't diminish people's pain because something happened in their life and the alarm went off. And yeah, you know, uh, yeah. And it's, we, we like to compare and contrast because it makes us feel better. Like, oh, well they went through that pain, but like I, I'm going through this and that's like so much worse. And I just, I, I don't like to think like that anymore. I like to think that, that people are struggling to get through this. Um, I like to get through things that look benign sometimes. And, um, it's really, I think that, that we're all on a path to learning and discovery. And sometimes like the, the worst enemy is the one that we have to look at every day and, and live with. And I, I just want to be someone who's a little bit more empathetic to, to people's differences, you know? And I think it's something that you, you learn as you get older, right? And you eat everything at every transition in your life, you look ahead and you think like, oh man, uh, you know, grade schoolers, they, they look like giants to you. Right. And then, and then high schoolers look like giants to you. And then like college people look like the giants. And then all of a sudden, like you look back and you realize like, you know, I'm 35 now and I look at college kids and I'm like, oh my gosh, they're like, they're kids. Like I see. Yeah. Little children. And, um, I just remember thinking that I was, I was like at the top of my game. I, I thought no one had it more together than me at 25. And I think realizing that everyone is kind of in mid transition and things, things can feel big to them in the way that they felt big to you when you were at that exact same place in life and didn't have the experience that you had. And, um, and that's good. That's awesome. Like everyone experiences. It from their own perspective. And, um, and that's a beautiful thing. We all get to take our own time and figure out how to do this crazy thing called life. Um, on our own. Yeah. This is one thing that, you know, venturing outside of the, the tradition that I grew up in and learning a little bit about, um, things like, uh, Zen and Buddhism and, um, other, other religions and other philosophies even, um, that are not necessarily even subscribing to a particular religion. And, and one of the, the most useful concepts that I've, you know, I, I can sum it up and it certainly is, is going to be reductive. So I apologize to the many years and, uh, cultures that I'm getting ready to hopefully not too badly offend. Um, but the, the idea of reducing your own ego, um, to the point that you can start to see life as if you didn't matter and, and not, not in a depressing or, uh, self deprecating way, but instead in a way that kind of lifts everything else up. Yes. So, so you, you start to detach from your own desires and, um, you know, you start to kind of become more of an observer of your life rather than just a subject of it. Right. And you'll, you notice as, as you practice this kind of, at least, when you start thinking this way or trying to practice this, you'll notice that the story, the center of your story, that originally it was you, right? Originally it was about your career or your pain or your frustrations, your struggles, you know, what happened to you and everybody else was playing supporting roles in this movie about you. And things like, for example, fatherhood, um, I'm, I'm now a father. And, and that has totally, totally changed the protagonist for me, right? In a lot of what I do, I am now the supporting character. Sometimes I'm the villain, unfortunately, but usually, usually I'm the supporting character. I'm the guy on the side. I'm, you know, maybe I'm the guide or maybe I'm, you know, the, the, the sidekick. But often, you know, I'm, I realize that my selfishness, my ego wants to elevate my position to primary protagonist. And, uh, every time I do that, I start acting in ways that I really don't want to act in. I start saying things and doing things that are selfish and ultimately the long run, they don't work out very well for me. Yeah. They burn relationships. They, you know, it, we don't have to go into all the specifics, but, um, that's not the way I want to live my life either. Right. And, and I think that kind of falls right in line with that very simple concept of empathy. Mm-hmm. I remember the hardest transition. The hardest transition for me was that one of going into parenthood. And it wasn't when, so my son's name is rock. Uh, it wasn't when rock was a baby. That was really easy. It was when he started to develop into like an actual human and had opinions of his own. And I realized that he saw me at the same like distance that I saw my dad growing up. Right. And he saw my dad at the same distance. And he saw my dad growing up. And he saw my dad growing up. And he saw my grandfather. Yeah. Wow. And just feeling, feeling replaceable made me not want to spend any time with him, which was a really horrible feeling. And I, I imagine that a lot of parents go through this, but it was, it was really, that was the first time that I had to kind of live with these feelings of, of death. And again, like being replaceable and knowing that, and, and I guess feeling for the first time that I am not the hero of this story that's taking place in the universe. I am just this tiny little moment on a tiny little part in a tiny little point in history. And I think once I like finally grasped that, like, like you said, all of those things, just realizing like this, this whole thing goes on without me. And it went on for a really long time. I mean, we all know that, but, but really having to internalize that is, is difficult. And that was, I mean, I remember that was the most depressed I think I've ever been. I just, I remember really feeling like my life was over. I was never going to be happy or feel joy again. I was just, I was just done at whatever, 30 maybe. Yeah. I have had those exact feelings. When my, when, when my son was first born, I remember, and this is probably the, some of the most vulnerable discussion that I think I've had on the show. But I remember nights where, when I was putting him down, down for bed and he would cry. And I remember feeling like exactly that feeling. It's a very strong sense of anxiety. Yeah. And for me specifically, and I've talked about this in the show briefly before, but I have, sorry. For me specifically, and I've mentioned this on the show before, but I, I've dealt with health anxiety. And so if you've ever met somebody who deals with health, health anxiety, you may see this characterized in television shows is like hypochondria, but it's a very complex thing. And part of it is, is complex because of your own personal histories. And some of it is complex because of the experiences that you have with friends and family. And at the time I was convinced that I was going to be able to live with my family. And I was convinced that I was going to be able to live with my family. And I was convinced that, you know, me putting my son down, this was one of the last memories he's going to have with me. And I was convinced that my life was ending soon. And, um, and that was devastating, right? It's the same concept that, you know, none of this really is going to matter because all of the things that I've been building up, uh, in my ego and all the things that I think that I care about or that I'm waiting on, or, um, all of these things that, that we put up on pedestals, it's, it's all crashing down around me right now. And that's, that is a extremely difficult feeling, but it's also one of the most enlightening feelings you can have. And I think for your experience as well, this idea that, you know, you finally realize that you are small and that you are not infinite, that you are, uh, mortal. Yeah. And, and realizing that you have an expiration date. You know, like as I start to get a little bit older and it's harder to lose a couple of pounds and my back hurts a little bit. And, um, my brain isn't as sharp as it used to be. I can't learn things as fast as I used to. It's very frustrating, right? Oh, the worst. It's so frustrating. But I also start to see like, there's some beauty in that. And this is really kind of the, the, the progression, like this is what was going to happen, right? Yeah. There was never another route, um, that, that, that, that, that, that, that should have happened. And we can either press against it and, you know, push all of our energy against this thing that we're kind of putting the label of pain on, or we can put a different label on it and stop pressing against it and start learning ways of accepting things that are otherwise difficult. Right? Yeah. That's a, I mean, an incredibly hard skill to have. Cause I think that our brains reject it, right? They're designed. Oh yeah. To avoid pain. To avoid pain. And it is, it's a really hard skill to do because you're really working against, uh, this thing in our skulls that, that wants us to always run away from pain and, uh, and survive at all costs. And it's done a great job at that. You know, not our brains, but the millions of years of brains that came before us, you know, they're all, they've done a really good job. And so we're suddenly telling them that they're wrong. You know, it's, it's antithetical, it's everything that we've learned. That's interesting that you mentioned health anxiety. I don't think I've ever heard that term before. Uh, but I strongly identify with that. I have had moments where, man, this is, this is a weird show you got here. I'm, I'm talking about weird. We'll talk about react in a little while. It's a, it's fine. Um, yeah, I remember there was this one night, probably the worst that ever got for me. Um, I remember Nelly had gone out. No, at least my wife, um, had gone out to spend some time with some, some girlfriends and she was, you know, a little bit further away than normal. And yeah, I had this, I don't know what happened. I mean, it was kind of in the midst of that kind of depression time that I was talking about. But, um, I remember feeling so anxious about the fact that I was going to like die while watching a movie with my kids that I called my mother and asked her to come over and hang out with us for an hour. Like, it was the weirdest, it was a very weird, like out of body experience because I am not the type of person who calls my mom to come watch a movie with me and my kids. I, I, I am way more capable than that. But yeah, I, I got, I guess just to identify with the, the thing that you've opened up about. Um, I, I've definitely felt that and I have a tremendous amount of empathy for people who are going through it right now because it is not fun. Yeah. For some people. And for me, for periods of my life, it has been all encompassing, um, to a point that, and, and for people who are, who are not, um, you know, familiar with this, with this feeling, um, imagine that you are convinced that you have a very rare disease. And, um, and, and you have evidence even that you have this and not just from WebMD. I mean, you have actual symptoms that you're experiencing. And, you know, you seek reassurance from the people around you by asking them to, to validate that you're either you're crazy or that you don't have the, indeed, you don't have what you have. Yeah. And as it turns out, this is, this is a terrible for you, unfortunately, to seek that reassurance, even though it's exactly what you feel like you need. And actually what you need is what we were talking about earlier, that, that you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, you may not, may not, And that's very difficult. But at the same time, it's freeing once you actually kind of dig into that reality a little bit deeper, right? Dig into the fact that certainty is not, it's not just you that can't have certainty. This is universal to everyone. No one knows. No one knows what's getting ready to happen. Yeah. And I think it's an area where, again, going back to religion, I think a lot of heaven or paradise-based religions talk about, it kind of feels like you're supposed to just slog through and eventually you get the reward, which is this thing on the other side of life. But it feels like they're kind of a little empty in how I'm supposed to translate my feelings and emotions about death right now. And I agree, studying, kind of coming out of that phase in my life, studying, studying some of the Buddhist philosophy and this, you know, very core to that is the idea of impermanence and coming to grip with the fact that you are not the hero of the show. You're this, you're just a moment in this kind of machine that just keeps going on and morphing and changing. And what we have is this really beautiful moment to be alive and to experience in a really, kind of cosmically, almost impossible way. The, like, I don't even know. It's like, it's that miracle of existing for that brief, that brief bit. Yeah. And there comes a point in life where you have to let go to fully enjoy it, which is one of the hardest transitions to make. And I think that so many of us don't, we just keep disrupting. We keep distracting ourselves. And it's, it's hard to watch sometimes, especially when you, you can see that pain that you've gone through in someone else. But it really is rewarding, kind of coming through that other side and having the freedom to let other people's stories blossom in the way that yours has up to this point. And I'm really just being open and receptive to this weird, gift that we have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we should be very clear because I feel like, you know, these conversations are so delicate, especially for people who are facing, you know, deep depression, anxiety, and, and any of the other multitude of things that, you know, it doesn't even have to be deep depression. It could be just this constant latent sense that, you know, something's not quite right. And I want to make sure that I encourage people, you know, if you're in that position that, number one, there's nothing, there's nothing bad about therapy. There's nothing, if it's stigmatized around the people that you are around, then I encourage you to look for more people to be around and to seek that kind of help that you need. And that can look different for everyone. I just don't want to let that go by that the idea that, you know, detaching does not mean that you, you know, you're going to be able to do that. I just don't want to let that go by that. I just want to let that go by that. I just want to let that go by that. I just want to let that go by that. value yourself. There's a big difference there, right? Detaching from making yourself the important thing. As it turns out, one of the most important things you can do for yourself is to, to care for other people. This is actually like really good for your health. It's one of the most, most, you know, recommended and useful ways to help people who are dealing with depression is actually to go and volunteer, for example. This is like a common prescription for, for depression. But, you know, I'm not a therapist. Michael, I'm pretty sure you're not a therapist either. So everything that we say on this show has to be taken with that, you know, that bit of, Hey, this is just our experience, but certainly encouraging people who, who face this stuff, that this is not a not serious thing. And sometimes people, absolutely the most important thing you can do is seek help. Yeah, I totally agree. And I, I have found, um, really great help at various points in my life where I have been sadder than I wanted to be. And, um, I mean, again, I don't have, I don't struggle nearly as much as many other people. And, but I still have, have days, weeks and months where I am kind of unconsolable and I think we all need help. And it's kind of sad that, that we have lost this kind of idea of community. We've found ways to build up these, these fortresses around ourselves and kind of live almost completely on our own. And the only, you know, air quotes, like community that we have is, you know, people who are like really angry on the internet about super pedantic things. And it's, it's hard to find people that, that you can just live like, you know, beyond just, you know, beyond opening up about what you're feeling and what you're thinking and these big transitions that you're going through. I mean, it can be hard just to find people that, you know, you want to spend more than a lunch with. And, uh, but it's, you know, it's such a important pursuit. And I think it's, it's so important that, you know, a lot of times we put up those walls and then we put walls behind. So much so that even our family, we put walls between us and, uh, our close friends that we otherwise would not have had walls. We, we still do that. And perhaps, you know, some of this is because we live, uh, you know, we're, we're overwhelmed with incoming information. There's a study that recently came out that basically said that the overwhelming amount of information has essentially triggered our brain. It's to only care about things that trigger, uh, fear or danger. Right. So we have so much incoming that we're, we're kind of auto filtering all of the delightful things, for example, because that's not really important for our survival. So the stuff that's geared towards fear, it kind of is, is short circuiting, jumping over that filter mechanism that we otherwise may have. And now we're, we're constantly being barraged by things that incite fear. And this can also be absolutely can be, um, you know, a contributor to the, the difficulty that you already face as a human being. Um, but it can contribute to those difficulties with anxiety, depression, et cetera, because if you're constantly being barraged with things that make you afraid, then why would you expect not to be afraid as you're kind of resting state? You know? It's, it's really difficult. Um, so I encourage as a part of that, I encourage people to kind of, um, you know, consider your media diet in the same way that you, hopefully you think about some of the things that you put into your body as important. You can also think about the things that you are consuming information wise and how much you're consuming, not simply because of the tone or the message of the thing, but also because you're spending your time and your time is, as we've said, it's expiring. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's limited. Yeah. Today's episode is sponsored by Manifold. Managed cloud services save developers time and effort. It wouldn't really make sense for you to go and build your own logging platform, for example, or your own CMS or roll your, your own authentication API yourself when a managed tool or an API can solve that problem for you. But how do you find the right service? How do you find the right services to integrate? And then once you do find them, how can you stitch them all together? And how do you manage access to these various services and the credentials between multiple projects and multiple teams for that matter? Managing just these details alone is like a full-time job, much less on top of building those things. Manifold makes your life easier by providing a single workflow to organize your services, connect your integrations, and share all of that with your team. 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That's actually for the services in Manifold's marketplace, the various services we were talking about for things like messaging and monitoring. You can use $10 to get a coupon code for $10. For free by heading over to Manifold.co slash devtea on any of those services. Thanks again to Manifold for sponsoring Developer Tea. as time wears on, but developers, we're constantly connected to our devices more than the average person because we work on our devices. So we have a closer connection, perhaps, than the average person would. We also are able to and often do work in isolation. And so when we spend our days in isolation like this, those kinds of problems are less easy to... kind of have checks and balances on, right? To your point, Michael, I think community is something that a lot of developers, unfortunately, are missing out on. So these issues are particularly important to the software development community, the web development community, whatever subsection of that that you want to choose. And in the past, also because a lot of that community was kind of cross-sectioned, self-identified as anti-computer, as anti-computer, as anti-computer, as anti-computer, as anti-computer, as anti-social or introvert in the first place. So we have this long-running history of loner developers. And this can be, you know, a way to gather people around this subject. I think it's really important that we address it as a community. Totally. And to add to that, I think we lift up or heroize, it's not a word, but we have these really high values for unhealthy behavior in the community. And I think that's one of the things that we need to be aware of in the development community. You know, working way too long, just crushing Red Bulls all day. I mean, maybe that's an antiquated one at this point, but I mean, caffeine, right? Caffeine in general. And there's, you know, a really, I mean, I think pretty consistently like a low value for exercise and kind of traditional in-person communication. And obviously, no one of these things in isolation is problematic. But I think that's a really good thing. I think that compounded, they can, like you said, create this like isolation in us and make us feel the opposite of, make us feel disconnected from people and the planet and nature and the food that we eat and all of those things that really do produce joy in you and excitement when you can be present and observe them. And yeah, I'd like to see that shift, hopefully, over the next handful of years that we can be, that we can better reward good behavior in our industry. Yeah. You know, and I think companies who promote work-life balance, that this, you're not off the hook on this one because, you know, it's not just about, you know, not working more than eight hours a day, right? It goes beyond that. I think for me personally, the thing that I've struggled to remind myself is that my mind is not, you know, it's not separated from my body. My mental state is largely dependent on how I treat my body, right? How I treat my physical experience in the world. And so we can, we can often as developers, I think because we have such mentally intense work, we can totally forget that a lot of the kind of coexistence of our body and mind really matters. And not like in a metaphysical way, in a very physical, real, you know, tangible way, the way that you treat your body is going to have a major effect on the way that your mind works. Absolutely. I, I, yeah, I don't have anything to add, but I couldn't agree more. Well, so I think we should, now that we've, I think we've covered all of our, our mental health checkboxes for, for the remainder of the show, maybe. But I do want to, I do want to kind of shift gears and talk with you about some of the work that you do and about your podcast, React podcast. And maybe talk a little bit about, you know, the upcoming changes that are happening in React and, you know, how people are responding to that. But first I want to ask you, why do you, do the work that you do? What, what got you here and why do you care about it? What, what gives you purpose to work on this stuff? Oh man, you got to start with the deep one. I thought I was off the hook for a second. Well, we're transitioning. We can't come right out of the water. We got to go to the shallow end first, right? Absolutely. So, I'll try to make this story quick, but it's kind of, I mean, as, as all things, it's kind of rooted in a long history of story, but effectively, I, in, 2010, or 2011, maybe, I got laid off from my family business. I thought I was going to be doing that for forever as every good Asian child, firstborn Asian child does, is just take on the family business. But, you know, post economic collapse in, what was it? 2008, I guess. Mm-hmm. Our business was just, like, it wasn't. It just, it just disintegrated. And, I was in a position where I had no marketable skills. I was really just kind of groomed to take over this business that didn't exist, and I couldn't really move anywhere. And I, while I was on unemployment, just remembered that I had this kind of one class that I took, and I kind of remembered how a function worked, and kind of remembered how a for loop worked. And I thought, well, maybe I can, uh, you know, get out there and just make, like, a small amount of money, just something to survive on, like, in this industry until I can kind of, you know, develop my skills. And, um, yeah, so I started that, and that was, that was a long journey and adventure all on its own. But, as I have developed in my career, I can't escape that memory. Uh, everything that I do every day feels like it's connected to that, that moment where I said, I'm going to try something different, even though it's totally outside of my skillset. And I have some reading disabilities, uh, that have kind of plagued me my entire life. I mean, even in high school, my mom was writing letters to my, I've said my mom more in this podcast than I all year. Um, but we, uh, my, my mom would like write letters to my teacher as being like, Hey, if it's possible to like, just extend a slight extra measure of grace. Like he doesn't read very well. And in fact, I mean, I'm, I'm going to just, just bear it all right now. Um, I, my reading disabilities were so bad that, uh, my mom read all of my high school required reading to me. Um, kind of embarrassing to admit. Uh, I mean, I definitely wouldn't have admitted, that maybe even in high school, um, but yeah. So, so learning things was particularly hard for me. And I, I knew just from my experiences that I was a slow learner and I didn't do great in school because right about the time that I was starting to understand stuff, we would move on and I would have a new thing that I was failing at. And I, I just remember that. I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I knew I was not a dumb person. I felt that way. And I just don't want people to people to feel that way. And so I try really hard. Um, I mean, I guess I don't try really hard at all. I, I want to put out stuff that would help me out when I was like further back in my career. Um, and even if that makes me sound a little bit like dumb or, you know, I, I'm more uneducated now. Uh, I want to try to use simpler words and smaller sentences and, um, you know, in the podcast, maybe break down a concept to, to a smaller, more digestible analogy, um, than is, is commonly accepted. These were all things that were, that really helped me get a foothold in this industry. And I, I, I really value all of the, the materials that I was lucky enough to find from people who did the same thing. They were like, Hey, like this, this computer science stuff does not have to like be complicated. You don't have to learn a whole lexicon of new words just to read a book. And I, that was invaluable for me. And if that hadn't existed, I, I wouldn't be where I am today doing the things that I'm doing, getting to meet the people that I get to meet. And I, I, I kind of feel a, a responsibility to pay it forward and, you know, just say, Hey, like you don't understand this thing now. Like, that's fine. Uh, it's okay. And, you know, you have a friend here who's happy to kind of like talk about it in language that you understand today. And I, I mean, I love that stuff. I, XKCD, uh, I can't, I can never remember the, the, the comic's name, but, um, there's, there's a book by the author and I can't remember. I think he only uses maybe a thousand words or something and through the whole book, but then describes all of these very advanced principles. And it is a real inspiration to me. The idea, trying to take something that is complicated and map it to things that everybody understands and using words that are simpler and more friendly, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, yeah, so that's kind of the, the backstory is I've, I've had a hard time learning and I hope that I can help people not be afraid of learning new things, um, by, uh, kind of making them a little bit simpler. I think this is something that is done seldomly by developers. And some of this is, you know, this base level where we start from. And this is something that I deal with, uh, at work at clear, but, uh, when we have discussions, if, if I'm talking with a developer that's been at the company for longer than I have, sometimes there are, you know, words that are used that they have like this kind of, um, deeper meaning, some, some more context that I don't have. And as developers, you know, it's easy to throw around words like, you know, whatever math thing that is popular for today's special, algorithm, right? Um, recently there's, uh, what, what was the algorithmic, the, the, the one from the most recent algebraic effects. There you go. That's a, that's a big react one right now. That's the one. Uh, and I don't know, I mean, I, you know, totally honest. I have no idea. I haven't gone and Googled that. I could go and Google it. I probably should go and Google it. But when somebody tries to talk to me about algebraic effects, I'm faced with the decision to either expose my ignorance, uh, or, or like just keep on acting. I don't have to act like I know what they're talking about, but I can just stay silent. And that's the easy thing to do. Just stay silent. And then eventually you pick it up. And often that's actually what happens. Eventually you will pick it up. You'll either Google it or somebody will say something that explains whatever that thing is. But the problem is that we, we go on for long periods of time and those concepts are lost on us. Um, not just us, but the people who are teaching it, they're not able to teach it thoroughly like they want to. And so this, this thing emerges where you have a student and you have a teacher and the teacher thinks they're doing a good job and the student thinks they're doing a good job, but more complicated than it really should be. And who was it? I think it was, um, uh, Feynman, the Feynman technique. Oh yeah. Yeah. I love Feynman. It's excellent. If you haven't heard about the Feynman technique, go Google it. Um, Google's going to tell you a better story than I will, but long story short, Feynman, his whole concept was you need to be able to teach this. Um, I believe it was like, you need to be able to write it down on a single sheet of paper and teach it to a beginner, like a child beginner. And if you can't, then continue refining it and simplifying it until you can. Yeah. I think one of his quotes and I'm going to butcher it, but it's something like until I can describe this to a first year student, I don't know. I don't understand it. Yeah. That's exactly the, exactly the concept, right? Yeah. And it's, you know, it, you know, as you, you mentioned that, that, that moment that we, I think we all have where someone says something and that bell goes off in your hand. You're like, I have no idea what that means right now. The like walking away and kind of like trying to figure out is, is something that we often do. But I have found that so many times you can, you know, depending on how your environment's set up, but, you can give a real gift to a lot of people to say, I don't think I understand like that concept. Could you, you know, give me a resource where I could learn more about it. Really opens up that group or whoever is watching to have that same level of honesty because, you know, we have a tendency to think like everyone else has like this superpower and we're just kind of hanging on, you know, white knuckled at our jobs, at least many. Absolutely. And I, I think that that gives people the freedom to be like, oh, wow. Like I thought that they were amazing at this. Uh, they're definitely further along than I am. And the fact that they don't understand that is super encouraging to me. And, you know, maybe I'll actually say that next time I have that same question and it can really foster, um, a lot of goodwill, I think, um, for people who are maybe like, you know, a year or two years or five years behind where you're at as a developer today. Absolutely. I mean, I think it's very important for people to understand that there are developers who've been doing this for 15, 20 years, not react specifically, of course, but who have been writing code for 15 or 20 years and they still, they still write bad code. Yeah. They still will find bugs in their code every day. Just like you do. Things are still confusing. Stuff is hard. Like the stuff it's complex. We were dealing with, you know, I did an episode on complexity and all the different factors that we deal with, the way the complexity grows, it grows so fast. And so for us to feel a sense of, you know, responsibility to somehow beat that complexity, that's not, that's not a realistic way. Um, and we need to be softer and gentler with the people around us when they don't know something that we do know. And I think this is very important for senior developers, especially to expose that reality that we're all still learning, something. One of my best friends does this better than anyone that I know. And it's so inviting and so warm. It's like, if I could steal one thing from any of my coworkers, it would be this. And I try, but it's so hard at times. Um, is whenever someone says, Oh, I haven't seen that movie or, uh, actually I'm not familiar with that, that concept or whatever it is like admitting ignorance and something. He says, Oh my gosh, I am so excited for you right now. I wish that I could see this or learn this or whatever for the first time. It's, it's totally going to change your life. And that's so cool. Yeah. That's a great way to do that. It is. And I, it's so hard because we're, I think so many of us are so competitive, especially when it comes to our mental acumen, especially in an industry where, I mean, we're called knowledge workers or we, many of us refer to us as that. and, you know, so the idea that you wouldn't know something, um, is just kind of discrediting by its very nature. And I just, you know, I want to be someone who is, is able to be excited for people who are learning something for the first time, because that is awesome. And I remember like all of the moments where I had a breakthrough and the light went off and it felt awesome. And having someone to share that with just magnifies that for both of you. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that, that idea of knowledge sharing is so key to, uh, coworkers. I do want to speak specifically to people who are responsible for like cultivating this, the managers and, um, you know, senior developers, senior people who are building teams and that kind of thing. This is something that you can't just like say once or put it in your documentation and then just expect it to happen. And you have to like be so proactive about this for it, to be a reality on your team that it almost gets old. Like make it a, a procedural part of every meeting you have to ask for, for people to raise their hands and share what they are confused about. And I would even recommend that you wait until somebody raises their hand. The odds, the odds that nobody's confused about anything are so slim in reality. And once you get those wheels greased, basically, you know, once, once people feel comfortable doing that, you're going to clear up, you're going to clear up so much stuff and it's going to be so much more just from a business level, more efficient, but it's also going to be a safer psychological place for people to work. Yeah. You know, it's, I, I think it's sad that we have all of these conferences and I was talking about this on an episode of react podcast with Sunil and Pi that we have these conferences. And instead of being an opportunity for people to admit their difficulties, the difficulties they've had, admit their ignorance and kind of be humanized. Um, in a way we just like raise these people up to these impossible standards, putting them on a pedestal and just kind of using that platform as just another kind of like another reason that they're so much different and so much better and so much superior and to than, than us. And yeah, the audience members, right? Yeah. There's like, we create this, this artificial gap and it's, it's so sad because every one of us, I mean, if you look back, you know, at any one of your heroes, like at a certain point, they, they knew nothing, right? And they might've been making the same exact mistakes as you or worse. And it's the, this hero culture that we have. I, I'm not really sure why I think it's, you know, it goes beyond web development too. But, um, I just, man, I, I get excited. When people really open up about the struggles that they have had. Um, because I think that that is what we really want to see. And yeah, we want heroes and want people to look up to, but, um, I think also like we want some like camaraderie and solidarity and, you know, it's there. You just kind of have to look for it really hard. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of developer tea. Thank you again to Michael Chan for joining me for this part. One of our, our interview together, make sure you subscribe and whatever podcasting app you're currently using. If you don't want to miss out on part two, thank you again to manifold for sponsoring today's episode for $10 worth of credit in the manifold marketplace, head over to manifold.co slash dev T that's manifold.co slash D E V T E a. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I know we've missed a couple of episodes. I was sick for a few, and then we have, uh, the holidays. That came up and we had planned a break, but we're back and we're going to continue publishing new content from now all the way through the new year. So if you don't want to miss out on that stuff, make sure you subscribe and whatever podcasting app that you use. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, enjoy your tea.