voir dire

voir dire—
"show & tell"

voir dire is a part of jury selection when each potential juror is questioned by the judge and attorneys to uncover potential bias.

We have to try.
[And that is all there is in a crisis.
Trying.]

Salvor Hardin, Foundation & Empire

There is a part of everything that tries.

      plants try to grow.
      animals try to survive.
      people try to better themselves.

A lot of things — art, philosophy, spirituality, engineering, etc. — are just different ways (or expressions of ways) that the trying part of a person tries to connect with the trying part of everything else.

I no longer make New Year's resolutions, but I used to. My father had a tradition of gathering my siblings and I at the dinner table every New Year's and having us each share our objectives for the new year. As the youngest, I got to go first or last. Everyone was at a different place in life, but the expectation was the same: try.

Try to be better, kinder, faster, whatever; but try.

As an adult, I naturally gravitated toward humanism. No, humanism is not atheism. Although most humanists are atheists or agnostics, many are theists. Humanism is an expression of the capacity and necessity for human action to drive a positive lived experience. (There's further nuance, but we'll leave the academic for the academics.)

So, for example, many (but not all) humanists believe that the universe is purposeless and chaotic — and the existence of life is but a statistical inevitability of the vastness of the expanse — but also contend that life, at a personal level, does have meaning and it is up to each person to create or otherwise find that meaning for themselves. In other words: you're here, now. Do with that what you will.

Out of habit, I was recently reflecting on my experiences in the past year. A lot happened. A lot that I am happy about, a lot that I am not happy about. But for me, the fun is (was) always in the trying.

...it works on my computer.
on my phone.
on my...
urgh. why doesn't it work on yours?
(... looks closely)
Oh.

I had this particular project at work that had layers of complexity and a lot of moving parts.

I wrote code across 5 separate parts of the codebase, worked with a collective of 11 people across the project lifetime, then had to figure out a byzantine rollout process.

After months of work, we discovered during rollout that someone (okay, a lot of people) in South Korea uses an application variant that my team had never been expected to support with our features. My project was touching a feature used by other teams for derivative features (stay with me...) used in that region, so we have to support it. More code is needed. Even more, actually, since the variant doesn't yet have specific frameworks that our project depends on.

I really wanted that to work out.

I had an important personal relationship improve and then dramatically implode. I really did try to make it work.

I communicated as clearly and honestly as I could.
I was understanding even when I felt misunderstood.
I listened even when I felt unheard and ignored.
I compromised even when I felt unaccomodated.
I empathized even when I felt frustrated.
I tried. And maybe they did, too — it just never translated.

I made myself vulnerable in ways I had never done before. I invested time, energy, and emotion. But mistakes were made, and everything else was never enough.

If you think these stories are not funny, you likely haven't met me; I have a funny way of conflating the funny and the sad. But I'll cut to the point: sometimes things just don't work out. Sometimes, they work just a little. That's the problem with trying. Sometimes you make mistakes. Sometimes you fail.

Don't lose the hope, that's my challenge for the year. To myself. To anyone. To no one in particular. Don't lose the hope, don't stop trying; I know I won't. And certainly don't hold back. If you hold back, you're no good.