agency

I’m on page 24 of an in-progress google doc as of quickly pausing to write this post from a weekend of Wilderness First Aid training. I still have 20 pages of hand written notes to go through, likely resulting in at least 10+ more pages of notes in the google doc. My handwriting is atrocious and I also know learning can deepen by rewriting what you’ve learned so I decided to type it all up. I offered to send it to some classmates as a bonus motivator to actually type it up and got a few email addresses at the end of the class to share with folks. I remember doing that in college–an early open source vibe that embraced learning over gate keeping knowledge. Plus, I might print out a few key parts, get them laminated, and throw them into my backpack to be safe.

I packed a lunch like a kid each day of the training and found myself at the literal edge of my seat most of the class, equal parts anxious to retain the information and fascinated by what we were learning. I’ve unfortunately had a few gnarly incidents in my life where this training would have been useful and I left the class feeling an overwhelming sense of agency, despite talking about situations where help isn’t coming for a couple of hours to a couple of days. I can’t do everything to solve the problem but I can do something. It felt similar to the first time I built a website and launched it. I can do this? It’s left me wanting to sign up for more classes: CERT (going to try to sign up in August when the Fall sessions start), CPR (looking to do this in May), and Psychological First Aid (there’s an online coursera version!). Of all the things I did on my sabbatical, taking this course stands out as something I’m particularly happy I did so I can better care for those around me.

There was something uniquely attention grabbing about being equipped for emergencies in the physical world. The closest that’s come to the feeling with software related opportunities was learning about how to restore hacked sites when I was a Happiness Engineer on the VaultPress team. I fell in love with figuring out how a hacker might have gotten in, how to undo it, and how to bring the site back to life securely. It’s probably part of why in my first year at Automattic, I barely took any time off. I enjoyed the agency and growth too much. I’ve missed that intense and prolonged one to one interaction and, as I head back to work very soon post sabbatical, I’m reminded to keep that desire close. It’s something to honor and incorporate. We must stay close to each other and not get lost in the sea of at scale software.