Coding Is My Adrenaline Sport

Coding is my adrenaline sport

When people see programming from the outside, it looks like a very sedentary occupation. In many ways it is. But when you are doing it, when you are the person in that chair, it is anything but sedentary.

Coding is a rush. The only thing preventing you from moving faster is the speed of your fingers and the processing power of your brain. Everything is happening all at once. Even with a plan, knowing exactly what you need to build, how you need to build it, and exactly why it needs the modules it needs, even then you are following the road where it goes, through all the twists and turns. It’s like that first moment of falling when you cycle over the top of a hill at speed, when you realise how fast you are going and you are both filled with adrenaline and a reckless sort of fear.

I’ve been addicted to that rush since I wrote my very first program at nineteen. There is nothing quite like it. I used to run, back when I still could, and even at my top speed, downhill, feeling almost like I could fly, it never quite measured up to the swoop and dive of the black hole that is coding. You want it to go on forever. It’s almost an out of body experience. Full brain immersion. I can code all day and barely even realise that time has passed. I am almost never the one to stop myself programming. Either the program has reached a natural break point, or someone else has noticed the time and managed to pull me back into the physical realm.

After I got sick I was terrified that coding would be different. My physical limitations would prevent me from reaching that level of pure cerebral energy that was my adrenaline fix. Would my fingers move fast enough? Would I get tired too quickly? Would my sideways brain be able to solve problems on the fly like it used to?

Luckily, like reading, it seems that my brain has been able to reach those levels necessary to dive into my code. I need an ergonomic keyboard and mouse, else my fingers tire and cramp easily. I get tired more easily, meaning that after the adrenaline rush I find myself unwell and exhausted. But even then, waking up like I did today, feeling ill from over exertion of yesterday’s coding spree, I wouldn’t trade my coding for a thing. Some people jump out of planes. Programmers dive into code. And after all, I’m no good with heights.