A Lifelong Journey

Education is where you often begin your journey in life in discovering who you are and where you fit in this vast, amazing and mysterious Universe. It equips you with tools and training. It can teach you what you don't like just as much as it does what you do. Your family and loved ones help shape your thinking and perspective. Experiences you seek out - further your understanding of both yourself and the world around you. Creating a life you want - one that you love and are eager to experience and that can handle the rigors of life - is up to you.

I think I am on a lifelong journey of discovering what that is, creating and adding to my life as I learn and become more the person I hoped I would be. Each discovery is a joy, as the world becomes more understandable whether it is the behavior of people or knowing a system in nature or a human-made process - learning the pattern behind it. 

About six years ago, a perceptive person I met in Atlanta, remarked that I loved to learn and had a keen curiosity about life and a great imagination. It may have been the most insightful thing anyone has ever told me - almost giving me a mirror with which I could see myself. That's one of those things about life - we cannot see ourselves, we do not know exactly how or what we say is understood or perceived, though we get some understanding over time and from the ways in which people respond. I do have a drive to learn and understand the world. I feel as though each part that I learn, becomes part of my understanding and helps me become more. 

Ada Lovelace and Growing

It's been a bit of stressful week for me but I was happy to resolve things I needed to do. I decided to take a break and go get some coffee and food. It always helps me unwind a bit. Seems to always do the trick! It did this time too! 

I started working on this piece for Elf where I wanted to look back in time at the start of the digital revolution, beginning with the computer. I read more about Ada Lovelace who I had heard about but did not really know much about. I quickly realized to my surprise, that I am a lot like her. If you don't know the name, Ada Lovelace was an English woman who worked with Charles Babbage, considered the father of the computer. Babbage built a Difference Machine and an Analytical Engine to make simple mathematical computations for general purposes. Ada expanded on this concept, envisioning a machine that could do more complex math such as algorithms. She imagined and described in detail a machine that could not only do specific preset tasks, but also perform a new programmable array of tasks that could constantly be changed.

Ada took the concept even further, explaining that anything that could be represented via symbols - such as words and music - could also be programmed in this machine. 

She was able to see a bigger picture for Babbage's machine and wrote the first 'code' for it. She helped connect the dots - the essence of creativity. Ada envisioned the idea for the modern computer, a machine that would be built 100 years later. It was only in the 1950s that her contribution was even acknowledged and she was credited as the world's first 'programmer.'

There are quite a few similarities that we share, even right down to some writing that I saw today. 

That made me think, What am I doing? What's holding me back?

+ I live in a better time, don't I? Don't I? 

+ I finally have good sense when it comes to companionship. I have good boundaries in place.

+ I have always had the most wonderful, beautiful, big-hearted, discerning and brilliant mother! ❤️❤️❤️

+ I feel freer and happier than I have during my entire adult life and more like the woman I intended to be!

So what will I achieve now? It can't just be "I will do this." It needs to be in process or DONE.

It's time. ⚡️