Beauty in Iteration

In a recent talk I gave in a school in Leitrim, I joked about how 18 year old me had truly screwed up in his choice of third level study. Theoretical physics proved not to be the fruitful endeavour I thought it would be, falling somewhere in the intersection between financial maths, engineering and computer sceince, but yielding only a fraction of the career opportunities of the other three. It was a degree that required one to specialise further in order to cement a good career opportunity. A lot of my friends did subsequent masters degrees, and I started a graduate programme in data engineering, since I couldn’t face the idea of another year of being a broke student. This ended up being one of the best decisions of my life, and landed me in the exciting world of fintech which I now find myself in.

I’m not a career advisor, but my college days did teach me one specific lesson that I believe anyone can benefit from. I found myself sitting in quite niche classes like nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, and cosmology, thinking to myself, “this is a load of shite”. I knew by third year that I wanted to go into the world of data/finance, and I knew that the study of the stars was going to be of little use to me. Unless JP Morgan decide to short the economy on Mercury, I reckon my cosmology anf financial knowledge will continue to not intersect.

I’m very proud of my leaving cert, and very proud of my title as a data engineer, but I’m ashamed to say that I am not proud of my degree. I graduated with a first, but I am equally as unable to explain the concepts of quantum mechanics as anyone. Whilst watching Oppenheimer, my friend Tiernan asked me for context on some of the concepts mentioned, and I said “Tiernan, they might as well be speaking Latin”. You see, I understood that I had to perform in these subjects academically, but I gave no effort to actually undertsanding any of the concepts in front of me, knowing that they would soon be irrelevant.

The issue here, is that I had lost all passion in solving problems, and was hyperfocused on finding answers, and this later proved problematic in my graduate programme. The art of engineering is in the solving of problems, rather than finding/knowing the answers. The ability to learn, adapt and grow is far more significant than what you actually know. So, I found myself struggling with the iterative process of coding. I would become frustrated and angry at myself, and my self-belief would take a regular battering. I would panic that I wasn’t performing well enough, or that I wasn’t finding answers quick enough. Tutorials and youtube videos would go over my head, as I struggled to take in the step-by-step instructions, my mind hyperfocused on the answer.

But over time, I began to find my bearings. Kdb, python and unix became almost as clear as English. The process of building something iteratively became fascinating. Then it hit me, the notion of writing code, which many people would deem as “a load of shite”, was something I thoroughly enjoyed.

Anything can be deemed “a load of shite”, when you have no understanding of it, but if you take the time to begin to piece the fundamentals together, the fog will begin to clear. If I had just taken the time to give quantum mechanics, or nuclear physics a chance, maybe I would have grasped them better, and perhaps even found them interesting, rather than immediately writing them off like I did.

As time passed, and this idea marinated in my head, I began to see other areas in life where this ignorant, dismissive attitude existed. Psychology is certainly an area where we see this, with the vast majority of the popualtion deeming it to be anywhere from “bullshit” to “witchcraft”. But in reality, if I hadn’t taken the time through counselling and self-exploration to gain an understanding of the workings of my own mind, who knows what would have happened to me? If I hadn’t gained an understanding of my anorexia and anxiety, and how to handle their suffocating nature, who knows what kind of life I would have lived, or more importantly, wouldn’t have lived.

There is a theory that we as humans can “find passion” in quite unusual areas. This potentially explains why certain people have great passion in careers like mathematics, law, science, accountancy, etc. What is it that drives them? (other than great compensation). There is a theory that understanding something which most humans find baffling, or boring, or utter nonsense, can give us a great sense of achievement. My passions in psychology and fitness grew quite organically, but the passion I now have for engineering evolved rather differently. What I once viewed as chaos, or bullshit, now appears beautiful to me. Personally, I see accounting as a great example here. I have no interest in the laws of taxation, or regualtion, I find it all quite baffling. I spoke to an accoutant recently and I asked him how in God’s name does he tolerate all of this. He said, “Conor, I absolutey love it”. My “bullshit” is his passion, and he has built a fruitful career off of this.

22 year old me left college with a flawed view of problem solving and a quite destructive lack of patience. But as I approach 26, I feel blessed to have found a love for the beauty of iteration, the process of learning and growing in every area of life. I have found a passion for reading about mathematics, data analysis, psychology, and even marketing (I’m a big Rory Sutherland fan).

So the next time you write something off as “complete bullshit”, take a second. Who knows what kind of passion you may develop in that niche area.

Be good,
Conor