One of the podcasts I listen to is This Developer’s Life. It’s an outstanding production put on by Rob Conery and Scott Hanselman. It’s like NPR’s This American Life, but it’s for software developers. But you should have been able to figure that out by the title.

Their last podcast was on Obsession. It’s fun to hear about other people like me. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one like me out there. And by like me, I mean people who are completely obsessed with learning, with studying, with wanting to know more. People who are fascinated by not just computers and programming, but in
music and …
culture and religion and …
why don’t Baptists drink alcohol and …
beer and …
microbiology and …
organic chemistry and …
valence electron orbitals and …
the Mars reconnaissance orbiter and …
faster than light travel and …
I wonder which Sci-Fi universe has the fastest FTL travel (Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica) and …
how could Caprica be so bad and …
did you ever notice that no one in Caprica rode bicycles and …
I wonder who’s winning the Paris-Nice tour …
OK, you get the idea.

With never being satisfied with “good enough”.

With rewriting the work of others, not for content, but for format.

With constantly wanting to redo just this piece of code, because it can be done better.

With always making lists of things that need to get done.

With not being able to communicate with most of the world, because you just don’t understand them.

With having no idea how to make “small talk”, because your brain is in 1,000 different places at once.

With never thinking they’re good enough because they are constantly comparing everything they do to everyone else.