It’s all acting, hacking and sales

I think looking at life through the lens of what we do comes pretty naturally to us. When I first started to get acquainted with tools, a whole lot of things began to make sense. I translated the hammer in my hand to any number of jobs in this world, and I realized it was all about tools. The knife is a tool when we carve the meat and the needle is a tool when we sew a button. The pen and the sword are equally mighty in their ability to accomplish a task.

I have a theatre background, so it is just as easy for me to look at life as though we are all constantly acting. I do not think this makes us dishonest because I do not regard acting as being false. Rather, I think of it as reacting honestly in situations as they arise. We volley off one another and, depending on who we are interacting with, our realities change. Being in the moment is a pretty common actors’ saying.

So, last week I met JB Bartkowiak for the first time in person and, over lunch, I hit him with the it’s all acting line. Immediately, he came back with a story of a sales person who had told him life was all about sales. What did you do when you got your wife to marry you? this person had said, You sold her.

A couple of day earlier, I had been working on the computer acting as if I knew what I was doing. The task was to tinker with the code of a Contact form and change the way it appears on a web page. Much to my surprise, I was able to do so. I had to tell JB about it because I thought he would be proud of me. JB does this kind of stuff with ease, but for me it was some kind of major accomplishment to have hacked the Contact form. I told him my story and, without batting an eye, he said, It’s all hacking. And I thought to myself, “You know, he is right.”

In carpentry, a hack or a butcher is what you are called if you really botch a job. But in the computer sense, I believe, I have always been hacking the code of construction. For as long as I can remember, I have been looking at how things are put together and selling myself on the idea that I could put them together as well. Apprentices hack their craft taking information from every available source to make themselves better carpenters.

Of course, this idea is an endless train. In the end, really, it’s all just life, but utilizing our experiences to help us make sense of it all is as valuable a tool as I can think of.