Great Professionals Are Addicts
Every great developer or designer is an addict. Actually, this applies to most of the great professionals in their fields. I would dare to say it’s impossible to attain the status of “Great” without this recurrent feature. Maybe they are not addicts because they are great, but they are great because they are addicted, and that’s a relentless addiction: no matter how much they have, they always want more and more, no limits.
I’m talking, naturally, about the Knowledge Addiction.
The Symptoms
The first symptom to manifest in an addict for knowledge, even in childhood, is the curiosity. Now you’ll say “But every child is curious”, and for sure that’s true to some extent. It’s a natural part of the transition process between being a child and whatever comes after that. The difference duels in intensity and persistence. A future knowledge addict is that boy who destroys the brand new remote-controlled car toy that he just received to learn how the engine works, and then exhausts the patience of his parents to discover how the commands get out of the control and activates the toy. This active, investigative curiosity never really leaves an addict for knowledge.
Addicts are multidisciplinary. Sure enough, they eventually find a subject which they feel more attracted to, but any type of new learning cause a thrill. An addicted developer dives deep into his “weapons of choice”, but also learns the basics of all other languages that he have access to, is interested in the key concepts of the design involved in the stuff he’s working on, knows the importance of more subjective details such as semantics and usability, and everything else that affects their work directly or indirectly. If some knowledge is within the reach of his hands (or mind), he’ll exercise his addiction to his heart’s content.
Another important characteristic is the capacity of absorption. Knowledge addicts are like vampires that feed on techniques, skills and the experience of those who are around them. They are those who, when mingled with other professionals, tend to observe, ask and learn as much as they can.
The Propagation of Addiction
Knowledge addicts aren’t happy to simply consume their “drug”. They also have the tendency to spread their characteristics, always ready to teach and share what they learn or develop. Some people refrain themselves when it comes to teaching for fear of “arming the competition”, but this doesn’t happen to addicts. They feel excited to find potential new addicts, and some even are engaged in seeking for them, ’cause it may seem a cliche, but when you teach something, you ALWAYS end up learning something in return, forming a vicious circle.
Have You Identified Yourself?
What about you? Perhaps you or someone you know is an knowledge addict? Do you know any other symptoms? Maybe some negative points?
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About the author
Henrique Erzinger
Henrique Erzinger is a brazilian front-end developer, designer and illustrator that's always craving for learning. He's current working on his own project at flyingsharks.com.br.
View his blog at http://herzinger.tumblr.com/
Heck I recognize myself… actually the remote-controlled car its a real part of my childhood memory.
I would like to add a negative characteristic… As a early-adopter of any technology I often need to refrain myself to keep focus on the old-good stuff I’m working at the moment.
Did you guys have to do it to keep productive too?
Yeah, I didn’t made up the car stuff, it happened with me as well. And you’re right, sometimes it’s really hard to keep focus, and I have lost some personal projects this way. But that’s something that you can learn too, and you gain it with experience.
OMW!! Glad it wasn’t just me that disassembled anything as a child XD
And, did you guys also find that you cannot sit still for any length of time? Or is that just the CDO (it’s the same as OCD, it is just alphabetical like it should be XD) talking?
Since I’m brazilian I don’t really know about the CDO/OCD stuff, but I was an hyperactive child, and a little devil sometimes xD” I think it’s consequence of all that curiosity.
Well, hyperactivity didn’t end for me as I got older
But yeah, if it wasn’t for the curiosity we wouldn’t be inspired to perform better in our daily routines and tasks
3 to 4 hours of sleep per night prevents me from being to hyperactive nowadays… But eventually I have my moments of “caffeine drive” xD”
LOL everyone says I have ADD…and a little bit of OCD
Guess we’re a ll nuts!
nothing wrong with that, it sets us apart from the rest, i.e. uniqueness
yeah, we’re nuts. just like the greatest geniuses of history =D”
and we’re very modest too xD”
Since I started teaching adult education classes at a local technology center, I have noticed the cycle of teaching–>learning–>teaching. It seems you can think that you have all of the information covered and then a student asks an unanticipated question. Sometimes that just requires thinking through the logic, and others times it requires waiting until the next session or sending an email shortly afterward.
An addiction I have that some think is weird is my addiction to reading legal documents pertaining to proceedings (specifically, SCOTUS opinions and oral arguments, and Congressional bills). I can’t sit down and read a “normal” book, but I find those to be absolutely fun to read. It gets even better when you come across a bit of humor injected into an opinion, such as “Section 3(b), as it currently exists, does not authorize the Board to create a tail that would not only wag the dog, but would continue to wag after the dog died” in New Process Steel v. NLRB, or “…like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad after being repeatedly killed and buried…” in Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District.
Well, I do think it’s weird, but as long as you have fun, who cares? xD”
I love teaching stuff. It’s one of the my primal objectives in the project I’m working on at the moment.
I believe any form of addiction is bad simply because it will most likely consume your life. In my opinion you should do everything in moderation no matter how obsessed you are with it.
Well, you have a point. But poor us, we don’t have an association or group meetings. xD”
I recognise a lot of myself in that. I find things like Wikipedia to be an incredible time sink – I could quite happily move from article to article for hours on end.
The downside is that I often find it hard to keep myself working on one thing – there are several programming languages I’ve made a start at learning one day and then been distracted by something else before anything could really sink in.
Yeah, the keeping focus stuff again.. You’re absolutely right, it can be hard sometimes.
Yip…this is it right…knowledge addict. When I was a kid I use take anything apart that had some technology feature to it and I could not sit still. Now that I’m older I can sit still but I’m constantly consuming knowledge…anything that interests me actually but mainly in the web design world.
Personally I think the only real negative point is the time factor. It takes allot of time to ackuire the knowledge.
Actually I think the time passes to fast. That makes me understand why did Fausto trade his soul (nerd reference, don’t mind me) xD”
Very true. The time does past fast XD. Sometimes just a bit to fast.
I don’t know if I can consider myself an addict, but I’m always willing to learn whatever is needed, and you even know it, since you ever had to teach me a lot in these times xD I can be really hooked on learning more about something, but usually things that are not important. If I have to learn programming one day, this will be very reluctantly, but I will. I think I’m just stubborn, not necessarily an addict.
Sometimes stubbornness is useful to learn, especially to keep you from giving up on something difficult. But I think the principal ingredient is always the will to do so.
If Great is a brand then I am Awesome!
I would probably add 2 symptoms good frame of mind and great communication skills to express your knowledge to let people know you have the power of greatness and wisdom on your side.
As far as negative try not to let knowledge push you too far you can’t relate to others sometimes your ideas are way advance for this time. I think knowledge crippled my sense of humor a bit…
Great post none the less and Brain had the great comment.
Well, I think it’s a good thing to be confident xD”
Those could be consequences and not symptoms maybe, especially the communication skills part.
And there’s no such a thing as too advanced humor (or ideas). You’re just trying it with the wrong audience xD”
The last statement you are correct but if too little understand too little care. Idea failed…
Yeah, if your only goal is to gain recognition from others, you’re right.
I love this post
I must say being a Knowledge Addict doesn’t go down well in the rat race. That’s one surefire way to become very miserable, very quickly.
Perhaps why a lot of you seem to end up freelancing!
And regarding Wikipedia, yes, I can get lost there for days. I’m self-teaching and it’s very hard to avoid going off on a Wiki tangent
Thanks a lot ^^”
I don’t know about it.. Actually, I still work for a company, while also doing freelance, and there it’s seen as a good thing that I’m always improving myself and that I like to teach the others.
wikipedia is cool, but I always try to have some other sources … To tell the truth, I still have difficulties in relying on content that anyone can edit, no matter how well moderate it is. I think it’s like the paranoia that some people have about buying online.