My name is Nelson Caudill and coding helped save my life.
Something that wasn’t apparent to me until very recently was the absolute beacon of light the tech community brings to this world. Throughout my life if was very easy to just see the negative in everything. I was still young when I lost interest in formal education. The idea I would have to work hard and study so that someone else could reap the benefits just didn’t really call to me.
So, instead, I skated by. Finishing just the necessary amount of work to get pushed along. Eventually landing me in the soul-sucking work of driving an ambulance. It sounded nice from the outside, but it became another reason to critizise societies values. Seeing medical bills ruin people, I developed a deep resentment for the healthcare system.
But it wasn’t just healthcare.
Check your facebook feed, give the front pages of CNN.com, or Fox News a quick glance. What do you see? More often than than not you’ll be shown stories of mass violence, political malfeasance, pharmaceuticals raising the prices on another vital drug, and, oh, did you see this week’s episode of Jersey Shore?
It all really became too much for me, and my inner cynic became my actual self. So I dove headfirst into the party life. My rebelious counter-culture attutide, devolved into a full flight from society and its rules. I wasn’t having it, and I didn’t want it. My perspective at that time: everyone is looking out for themselves, fuck it, me too. Thus, I slipped deeper and deeper into despair and hopelessness. Dreading even waking up in the morning. I would have to land face first on the asphault to snap back to reality. Literally.
Along the way, about 17 months ago, I stumbled across coding. Essentially out of boredom. I started with Zed Shaw’s Learn Python the Hard Way. Immediately hooked, I devoured the lessons. I reached the section on test driven development in less than a month. Then, crashed and burned. Coding was like nothing I’ve ever done before, but I wasn’t ready to put in the work necessary to gain a full understanding of the concepts.
Still, I remained intrigued. Reading a little here (Real Python), playing with some code there. Eventually, I began listening podcasts (CodeNewbie) and now my eyes were really being opened. Not just to coding, but to the mindset of the community. What I saw was love, support, humility, the want to leave this world a better place than we found it.
But, sometimes change happens too slowly, and my lifestyle caught up to me. We hear it all the time: listen to your elders, and learn from other’s mistakes. I must’ve missed that memo. I wouldn’t have done it any other way though. My experience has brought me to where I am now.
During this new shift in my soul is when I found what the tech community really brings to the table. It allowed me to discover the open source community, what it stood for, and it’s implications outside of software. Open source for me means more than the awesome story of how Linux changed the narrative of the Microsoft/Macintosh race. More than a platform for propagating great ideas and sharing them across the world. From my perspective, open source looks like the unstoppable spread of hope and a better life for many across the world. The concept that it’s ok to share is making a coming back from the playground.
Even outside of open source it’s clear that technology companies can offer high-powered, dynamic solutions especially in terms of networking, communication, and bringing resources together.
For years I lived with an empty heart. Having come to believe that no one around me cared about what the future looked like. I’m very glad to have been proven otherwise.
In my brief time at Flatiron School I’ve already felt such an abundance of support. Starting with Ash, my amazing admissions represantative. The active slack community we have in online-web-ft-110419 has been absolutely wonderful, and the cohort leads, Jenn and Chris have been beyond helpful. I’m grateful for them all. One thing is certain in my heart now. I’m determined to be a part of this thing that’s so much bigger than I. I’m ready to move forward and bring others up with me.
For that, I have code to thank.