This guide will focus on installing all the requirements to get Elixir & Phoenix installed on a Windows 10 machine via the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and getting PostgreSQL as the primary database.

This guide will assume that you already know how to install WSL Bash on Windows 10. I won’t go over that because a simple Google search will give you plenty of useful links to get this rocking.

Disclaimer: I have coded absolutely zero things in Elixir or Phoenix. It’s always been on my todo list but haven’t had the time to sit down and bite into it. So why am I doing this then? Well because someone asked me to and why the hell not give it a go? Maybe it’ll give me the kick in the ass to learn Elixir & Phoenix but I digress…

This may also look familiar to the process and steps I took to write my Ruby on Rails WSL in Windows 10 guide that you can find here. Lets crack on.

Installing the pre-requisites

My install is truly a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro and the WSL Bash (my primary hard drive failed so I had to start from scratch).

Pro Tip: If you ever run into an issue or you just need to figure out what command or procedure you need to do for specific tasks in regards to Bash on Windows you can simply Google the question and reference Ubuntu. Bash on Windows is built on top of and in partnership with Ubuntu which makes troubleshooting (Linux specific issues & procedures) quite easy.

First let me state that this information and process is being pulled straight from both the Elixir and Phoenix docs so if you need reference points you can check them there, this is just an attempt to get it in a single, easy to read, guide for everyone to be able to get up and running.

Let’s start with updating our instance of WSL via the Bash command line.

sudo apt-get update

Now we need to add some repositories to our instance of WSL. First we will add the Erlang repository. If you are unaware Elixir is built on top of the Erlang language.

wget https://packages.erlang-solutions.com/erlang-solutions_1.0_all.deb && sudo dpkg -i erlang-solutions_1.0_all.deb

Now that we’ve got the Erlang repository added to our instance lets make sure we update our system again. To do this we will run the update package command again.

sudo apt-get update

Sweet, looks like we’re getting our packages we required from Erlang pulled into our system. Our first win!

Now we need to install the Erlang/OTP platform and all of the required applications associated with it.

sudo apt-get install -y esl-erlang

Fantastic, no errors! Now that we’ve got all the Erlang dependencies we can now install Elixir.

sudo apt-get install -y elixir

Sweet! Let’s just verify that we’ve got access to Elixir and that it was installed properly by checking the version number.

elixir --version

As of writing this I’ve got version Elixir 1.5.1 installed.

Just to be on the safe side let’s just double check we can do Elixir things. We’re going to open up the Interactive mode so that we can just do some simple math inside of Elixir’s interactive mode which is very similar to Ruby’s interactive mode.

iex

This command will get you into the interactive mode. Now for some simple commands.

5 + 5

This should result in this.

iex(1)> 5 + 5
10

All good? Great. Now press ctrl + c twice to exit out of the interactive menu.

Perfect. We’ve got Erlang, Elixir and all the required dependencies for both installed.

Installing Phoenix web framework

We got most of our dependencies installed for Phoenix but just like Rails needs Bundler, Phoenix needs Hex. So let’s install the hex package manager.

mix local.hex

Now that we’ve got all of our essential Phoenix dependencies we can grab our Phoenix archive and install it on our system.

mix archive.install https://github.com/phoenixframework/archives/raw/master/phx_new.ez

Perfect, Phoenix is now installed. There will be some dependencies that will need to be installed but we will let Phoenix handle those once we build our first application.

The odds and ends

Like Rails, Phoenix utilizes some npm packages to handle static assets specifically brunch.io. What we will need to do is install Node.js to get all the essential files.

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_6.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Let’s just make sure we got the right version.

npm -v
node -v

As of writing this article I’ve got npm 3.10.10 and node v6.11.3. That should work. We will additionally need the build-essential package for additional node/npm addons as well as inotify-tool so that we can have live reloads for our Phoenix server later on.

sudo apt-get install -y build-essential inotify-tools

Installing PostgreSQL in Bash on Windows (primary)

The last piece of our puzzle is to install PostgreSQL on our system. Now let me make a disclaimer right here: I’ve got no idea how well this will work, your mileage may vary depending on your Windows 10 version. I’m feeling a bit saucy so we’re going to try this.

If it doesn’t work with your version I will include a workaround that we had to use for the Rails installations because WSL wasn’t ready for handling postgres stuff.

First we will have to install our postgres repository.

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ xenial-pgdg main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list"

wget --quiet -O - http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ACCC4CF8.asc | sudo apt-key add -

Now let’s update our package lists and install the actual postgres packages.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install postgresql-common
sudo apt-get install postgresql-9.5 libpq-dev

Great, that looks like it worked. We won’t truly know until we build our application if the database connectors work. Let’s keep on keepin’ on.

Before we setup our user’s password we need to make sure our postgres server is running.

sudo service postgresql start

We should’ve got a message indicating that the service is starting. **Side note: you will likely have to do this every time you start bash and want to use your postgres database.**

Let’s setup a user for our postgres dev environment that we can use for our applications authentication. We will be using the built in postgres user since the default Phoenix application build process assumes this to be the case.

First we need to be in the postgres console.

sudo -u postgres psql

We should see this (or a very close variation of this depending on the versioning).

psql (9.5.9)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=#

Now to set the password as postgres. Disclaimer: NEVER EVER EVER set your password as POSTGRES in a production database, NEVER. Did I say NEVER yet, don’t do! EVER! This username/password combo should and only be used in a local development environment that DOESN’T use actual customer/client/user/consumer information.

Now onto setting the password. Type \password postgres. This will start the password prompt for the postgres user. This is what the prompt will look like.

psql (9.5.9)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# \password postgres
Enter new password:

Now type the password postgres twice. See previous disclaimer! Things should now look like this. The prompts will be blank as you type the password.

psql (9.5.9)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# \password postgres
Enter new password:
Enter it again:
postgres=#

Perfect, finally we have to type \q to exit out of the psql console.

PosgresSQL should now be installed and a user configured for our application.

**DISCLAIMER: Phoenix assumes your password for postgres will be postgres with the default user name of postgres**

Installing PostgreSQL in Bash on Windows (alternative)

As of Windows build version 15024 this should’ve been patched, however, if you are not currently on this build or have issues we will need to setup postgres the old fashion way.

This is the workaround version for getting postgres to work if you don’t need this skip this part.

First we need to go and grab the binary (.exe) for the PostgreSQL installation. Let’s download and install the latest stable version of PostgreSQL Windows binary.

PostgreSQL 9.6.2 provided by BigSQL: Download

Now that we have the PostgreSQL downloaded, let’s begin to install it.

Follow along with the “Setup Wizard” leaving the defaults checked. If you want to install the additional packages you can but it’s not necessary and we don’t need the extra bloat.

Once you get to the “Password” section set up your password that you want for your postgres user account. Phoenix assumes that the password will be postgres as such we need that to be our password

DO NOT USE “POSTGRES” FOR YOUR PASSWORD IN YOUR PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT!!!

Great we got that installed, we got our password set, lets do a quick sanity check to make sure that our Bash WSL is connecting to our Windows installation of PostgreSQL.

Run this command from your Bash terminal.

psql -p 5432 -h localhost -U postgres

If everything was installed properly you should get a response similar to this and the postgres shell prompt.

psql (9.5.6, server 9.6.2)
WARNING: psql major version 9.5, server major version 9.6.
         Some psql features might not work.
Type "help" for help.

postgres=#

Great we got it working. Now type \q to exit the postgres shell.

Building our first Phoenix application

Now as a reminder, this is uncharted waters for me so cross our fingers and hope this all works!

By this point we should have all our dependencies installed: Erlang, Elixir, Hex, Phoenix, Node.js and PostgreSQL.

Before we run our first command to create our application we should probably migrate to our Windows C:\ drive where we will keep our development files. For me that will be a folder on my Desktop. From here you will have to substitute in your folder location since it will be slightly different from mine. Here is where I will be changing directory to and storing my project files.

cd /mnt/c/Users/Colin/Desktop/projects/phoenix

See how my username name is /Colin/ this is likely where you will have to input your Windows username and your local file path. Unless of course your name is Colin, which case internet high five!

So yeah, there’s that…

Let’s proceed. Run the command to start the application creation and build process. Accept the fetch and install question that you may be prompted with. Also, the structure of creating your app will be mix phx.new [the name of your application] just as an aside.

mix phx.new hello

We should see this as the result (this is just the bottom section of the output).

We are almost there! The following steps are missing:

$ cd hello
    $ mix deps.get
    $ cd assets && npm install && node node_modules/brunch/bin/brunch build

Then configure your database in config/dev.exs and run:

$ mix ecto.create

Start your Phoenix app with:

$ mix phx.server

You can also run your app inside IEx (Interactive Elixir) as:

$ iex -S mix phx.server

Now we have to change directory into our applications folder.

cd hello

Before we create our database we need to grab some dependencies and build our assets.

mix deps.get

Build the assets.

cd assets && npm install && node node_modules/brunch/bin/brunch build

Now we can create our database for our application (fingers crossed), we also need to change our directory one level up to the root of our project’s folder in order to use ecto.create (install any dependencies it asks for).

cd ..
mix ecto.create

w00t!!! Hopefully you get this message!

The database for Hello.Repo has been created

Let’s start our Phoenix server.

mix phx.server

Now we need to open up our browser and navigate to localhost:4000 if all worked out as intended you should see this webpage. If you see it CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Conclusion

Hot damn we got it installed and running! That should be it folks. Elixir and Phoenix up and running on Windows Subsystem for Linux in Windows 10.

This will focus on installing Ruby, Rails, and getting PostgreSQL to play nicely with Rails and Bash on Windows 10. We will be leveraging the Linux subsystem on Windows 10. This article will not go over installing the Linux Subsystem and getting Bash up and running, there’s already great articles on that very subject. Here is Microsoft’s guide on installing the Linux Subsystem.

Let’s continue on to installing Ruby, Rails, and getting PostgreSQL up and running so that we can use Windows 10 as a development environment for Rails web development.

Installing the pre-requisites

First we need to make sure that are current install of Bash on Windows is update to date.

Pro Tip: If you ever run into an issue or you just need to figure out what command or procedure you need to do for specific tasks in regards to Bash on Windows you can simply Google the question and reference Ubuntu. Bash on Windows is built on top of and in partnership with Ubuntu which makes troubleshooting (Linux specific issues & procedures) quite easy.

Lets update and install some pre-requisites.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git-core curl zlib1g-dev build-essential libssl-dev libreadline-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev python-software-properties libffi-dev postgresql-client-common postgresql-client libpq-dev

The terminal will likely prompt you to make sure that it’s okay to install a specific package, just type Y and hit Enter.

After this operation, 6,082 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y

That should cover all of the pre-requisites that we will need to be installed to continue on with the process. The pre-reqs are required to get Ruby installed and PostgreSQL (which we will be going over a little bit later).

Installing Ruby

In order for us to install Rails we first need to install Ruby. For the purpose of this article we will be installing Ruby 2.4.1, your version may differ but at the time of writing this Ruby 2.4.1 is the latest stable build.

In order to install Ruby we will be using rbenv to handle the install and management of our Ruby gems.

Here is a script that will make life for us just a little bit easier. You should be able to just copy and paste this into your terminal but just like life, your mileage may vary.

cd
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bashrc
exec $SHELL

git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
exec $SHELL

Now that we have our path built and plugin directory installed for rbenv and Ruby we can now install the latest Ruby version.

Installing Ruby this way takes a bit running through the terminal; patience young grasshopper.

rbenv install 2.4.1
rbenv global 2.4.1
ruby -v

Disclaimer if you are like me and already had rbenv & Ruby previously installed and are getting a message that says…

ruby-build: definition not found: 2.4.1

The following versions contain `2.4.1' in the name:
  rbx-2.4.1

See all available versions with `rbenv install --list'.

If the version you need is missing, try upgrading ruby-build:

  cd /home/cr/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build && git pull && cd -

… you will need to pull the latest version of rbenv and it’s definitions so that you can install the latest version of Ruby. To do that simple input this into your terminal.

cd ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/
git pull origin master
cd -

Now you can go back to the previous step and install the latest Ruby version you have in your definitions.

Installing Bundler

Next we need to install Bundler Ruby’s package manager. This one is pretty simple.

gem install bundler

Now we need to rehash our gems, this updates the pointers to the right location of the new packages.

rbenv rehash

Installing Ruby on Rails Pre-requisites

Rails is dependent on NodeJS for runtimes in the asset pipeline so we will need to first install NodeJS.

Lets add NodeJS official repository to our system.

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_4.x | sudo -E bash -

Now that the official respository is mapped to our system we will need to install NodeJS.

sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Awesome, lets just take a minute to make a little sanity check before we continue on installing Rails. Lets just make sure that NodeJS is installed.

nodejs -v

You should get something like v4.8.1. If you get a version with the last command lets continue on installing Rails.

Installing Ruby on Rails

Now that we’ve got Ruby and all of our pre-requisites for Rails installed we can go ahead and install Rails.

gem install rails

Pretty straightforward really but we have to remember to rehash our environment so we have all the correct pointers.

rbenv rehash

Now lets check to see we have the correct version of Rails installed.

rails -v

We should hopefully get v5.0.2 or a similar version. Again mileage may vary.

AWESOME! We’ve got Rails installed on our system!

Lets not get in front of ourselves though, we still can’t really use it. We need to setup our database infrastructure.

Installing PostgreSQL

At this point I’m going to state that the current, easiest and most supported database environment that works without workarounds with Rails is MySQL. That being said nearly every developer and bootcamp I can think of uses PostgreSQL and really that’s likely why you are here, so can we use PostgreSQL w/Rails on Windows 10 Bash Linux Subsystem?

Well, we can, we just have to do a little bit of working around. Instead of our typical route of installing PostgreSQL through the terminal we will have to install PostgreSQL as a Windows binary and getting our two systems to connect to each other.

I’ll be honest, it’s a bit of a pain in the ass but Microsoft is currently working on the issue and hopefully we won’t have this issue in the near future. They’ve done good work listening to the community and pushing through the work quickly so I’m hopeful.

Lets download and install the latest stable version of PostgreSQL Windows binary.

PostgreSQL 9.6.2 provided by BigSQL: Download

Now that we have the PostgreSQL downloaded, lets begin to install it.

Follow along with the “Setup Wizard” leaving the defaults checked. If you want to install the additional packages you can but it’s not necessary and we don’t need the extra bloat.

Once you get to the “Password” section set up your password that you want for your postgres user account. I choose to just have my password be password for ease of use in my local environment. You can choose whatever password that you want but you will need to remember it later on in our work.

DO NOT USE “PASSWORD” FOR YOUR PASSWORD IN YOUR PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT!!!

Great we got that installed, we got our password set, lets do a quick sanity check to make sure that our Bash Linux Subsystem is connecting to our Windows installation of PostgreSQL.

Run this command from your Bash terminal.

psql -p 5432 -h localhost -U postgres

If everything was installed properly you should get a response similar to this and the postgres shell prompt.

psql (9.5.6, server 9.6.2)
WARNING: psql major version 9.5, server major version 9.6.
         Some psql features might not work.
Type "help" for help.

postgres=#

Great we got it working. Now type \q to exit the postgres shell.

Creating our Rails application

First we want to make sure that we are in the correct directory. I use a directory on my desktop to keep my files organized, again your mileage may vary. We will use my file locations for an example and you will have to substitute where it is necessarry.

cd /mnt/c/Users/User/Desktop/projects/applications

Note that we are storing our application in our Windows filesystem and NOT our Linux Subsystem. This is why we are changing directory into /mnt/c/Users from here you will have to identify your Windows user account, you can do this by running ls and seeing what shows up. For me my user account name is User. After that you will have to cd your way to the directory that you want to work in.

Now that we are in the proper directory lets create our first application.

rails new windows_bash_test_application --database=postgresql

We should see rails creating the application.

Change directory into your application.

cd windows_bash_test_application

Lets setup our database.yml file real quick just to make sure everything is still going good with our PostgreSQL installation.

default: &default
  adapter: postgresql
  encoding: unicode
  pool: <%= ENV.fetch("RAILS_MAX_THREADS") { 5 } %>
  host: localhost

development:
  <<: \\*default
  database: windows_bash_test_application_development
  username: postgres
  password: password

test:
  <<: \\*default
  database: windows_bash_test_application_test
  username: postgres
  password: password

production:
  <<: \\*default
  database: windows_bash_test_application_production
  username: windows_bash_test_application
  password: <%= ENV['WINDOWS_BASH_TEST_APPLICATION_DATABASE_PASSWORD'] %>

Now from our terminal lets create our database.

rake db:create

If everything is working good we should get a message saying our development and test database was created.

Created database 'windows_bash_test_application_development'
Created database 'windows_bash_test_application_test'

Lets run our Rails server and make sure everything is working.

rails s

Now in your browser go the your localhost:3000 and you should be presented with verification that Rails is indeed running and installed.

Conclusion

That’s it, you’re all set to go. We now have Rails running with PostgreSQL on a Windows 10! Give yourself a pat on the back!! Woohoo!!!

If you have any questions you can contact me and I will do my best to help you along, there are some pretty common gotchas but if you just spend a few minutes Googling them you should find your resolution. Remember Google is your friend. If you still are having issues reach out and I’ll see what I can do to give you a hand.

** Originally published on http://colinrubbert.com **

There’s this perception that when you find your passion and direction that automatically things will fall in place and your life will be perfect. People make millions of dollars pitching this concept to the masses but it’s flat out wrong. The problem is that as human beings we are constantly in a state of flux. We don’t magically fall into a mold and stay there, we continuously break it and rebuild it.

For a long time I forced myself to stay in a mold that I no longer fit into. I had found my passion but eventually the passion became a task and a duty to be performed when requested. It really sucks the joy out of the thing that you were once passionate about. Passion dries up and evolves over time. Thus the reason why I write this, my former passion for being an IT consultant has dried up, I no longer get the satisfaction, the challenge, or the joy from it.

So begins the pivot. Web design and development started out as curious interest and quickly grew into a formidable obsessive and passionate force that consumed my life. With this drive and satisfaction I came to the conclusion that if I really wanted to capitalize and push this passion forward I need to pivot. I needed to stop focusing on what I was doing as an IT consultant and start moving in the direction that I truly enjoy.

Today I announce the launch of my new endeavor, Tradewinds Interactive, a web design consulting agency that focuses on small businesses where I can bring their ideas and services to the world. Owning my own consulting company and working for numerous small businesses over the last 15 years I have gained solid understandings on the shortcomings, strengths and needs of small businesses which gives me a great position for helping other small businesses to shine in this digital era.

If you’re looking to work with someone who cares about the outcome of your business or idea and who understands the needs for small businesses in our digital landscape don’t hesitate to reach out. If you’re interested in finding out more information about the company, myself, and the ideas behind what I will be doing please head over to http://tradewindsinteractive.com to signup for the newsletter in which you will get updates, articles, and tips. If you’re interested in getting a rough estimate on how much a custom website costs you can head over to http://tradewindsinteractive.com/website-pricing-calculator/ and we can get started working out what we can do together to build your future. There may even be a bit of a discount for my first few clients ;)

Onward we go to building the future…

The Pivot was originally published in Tradewinds Interactive on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lightning talks: you’ve heard it mentioned in passing or you may even have even watched one but why the hell should you care? Well before we jump into that why don’t we just define what a lightning talk is in the first place.

Lighting talk — A very short presentation on a very specific topic. Typically lasting anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes in length covering a focused topic.

It’s pretty straightforward, a person gets up in front of a group of people and talks about something that they are passionate about or something they believe will benefit the group as a whole.

Why should you care?

Well as I see it there are two sides to this coin; the impact it has on our internal motivations and the impact that is has on our external community. Lightning talks are both selfish and selfless at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah but why should I care?

Internal motivations:

• Learning something new outside of your comfort zone. Look we can spend our time going through our bootcamp curriculum and stay in this tight little bubble and never venture out and there’s enough experience and hand holding that you will have a good foundation at the end of the course but if you really want to stand out and level up then you need to step out of your comfort zone. By doing this you learn something that could help make you unique and teach you the valuable lesson of troubleshooting issues and leveraging your resources to answer questions that aren’t obvious to you.
• Sense of accomplishment. The struggle that you will face during the time exploring a new topic will sometimes make you want to give up and say “screw this” but then when you thought all hope was lost you will have that fantastic “ah-ha!” moment and you will understand the topic. That ah-ha moment is what makes this all worth it, that sense that you understand and have accomplished something you didn’t know was possible.
• Talking in front of people. Many of us are pretty introverted. For the people that know me it may not seem it but I’m incredibly introverted, social situations have a tendency to make me feel incredibly uncomfortable, however, after years of talking to strangers, giving talks in front of large groups, and throwing myself into uncomfortable situations I have gotten really good at faking comfort in social and presentations situations. Eventually you will have to give a presentation to a client, coworkers, or at a conference so starting now with a group that won’t judge you, will prop you up and encourage you to push yourself further than you thought was possible will give you a massive leg up when you have to do it for real, when it counts big.
• Talking about tech. To talk about tech is a tricky thing, it really is all about your audience and your knowledge. To accurately and efficiently give your talk you need to know your audience and your topic. Lightning talks are an easy way to start experimenting and learning how best approach talking about tech. To be able to give a talk that lasts 5–7 minutes on a topic you really need to understand the topic thoroughly and at the same time you need to be able to simplify it to your audience. The topic and your words need to be reduced down to a hyper-focused direction. This takes practice but it’s not hard to master. For many of the previous speakers we’ve had they have all significantly improved their delivery and quality from their 1st talk to their 2nd and even more to their 3rd. It takes practice but that practice gives you the opportunity to crush it when it matters.

External motivations:

• Shows initiative to learn and be uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is a good thing in the world of technology, if you ever get to a point of complete comfort it means that you are slipping behind the curve. Going out and tackling a topic shows that you have the drive to stretch your legs and run head first into the unknown. Employers love when people take initiative and strive to learn more. It shows them that when they hire you you won’t be dead weight but you will work hard to learn their stack and processes while not allowing the uncomfortableness of learning something new hold you down.
• Show and tell; evidence. Since we record every lighting talk and then edit them down into individual topic videos it gives you as the speaker a nice video to send on to a potential employer. How many recent grads have a video of them going outside of the curriculum to learn something they’re passionate about and care enough to show the world what they learned? I’d say not many at all. It’s pretty competitive out there, especially if you are in a demographic that is in a highly populous technological hub; New York, Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., Austin, Seattle, London, Berlin, Hong Kong, Sydney, etc. You need something that makes you unique, it’s not your winning smile that will get you that interview but it very well could be that excellent lighting talk you did.
• Giving back to the community. We spend a lot of time using resources that more experienced people have developed and shared with us. Most of our early careers will consist of us borderline stealing other people’s ideas and techniques to forward our progression. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, the development community and open source philosophies encourage this behavior because it’s how the previous wave of newbies all learned as well but eventually you need to move beyond just taking and you need to start giving. You don’t need to develop this crazy new open source technology or make a groundbreaking discovery on how to make Ruby 10 times faster, you just need to give a little and help at least 1 person. By doing a lighting talk you are sharing with your community and giving back, even if it doesn’t help the whole it may help the single individual and that’s worth it all. Yes it’s wonderful to land yourself a job because you showed your initiative but it is WAY more rewarding to empower some with a simple spark of a new idea and push that person to a future of limitless possibilities. None of us would be anywhere if someone didn’t believe that giving away their knowledge was more beneficial than keeping it themselves.

Those are just a few benefits and reasons why you should give a lighting talk, they’re definitely not the only ones. The biggest reason why to do one though is that they’re fun! It’s fun to just hang with friends and peers and shoot the breeze about some cool thing you just learned. I would love to see more and more people step up and explore the wonderful possibilities that the endless world of web and software development has to offer to us. Looking forward to seeing your talk at the next lightning talks.

I’ve had a few days now to come to terms with the fact that theFirehoseProject is all over. It’s been an amazing ride over the last 3 months and the skills I learned will leverage me into my next career pivot. I’ve met some really great people, experienced horrible frustrations, and felt amazing triumphs. I’ve went from slowly trudging through the Rails tutorial sea of mud to learning how to be a web developer. To have been able to accelerate my skill acquisition in this way would have been damn near impossible had I continued to do it on my own. It truly has been an amazing program to be a part of and it is easily one of the best decisions I have ever made. In a lot of ways the Firehose Project has brought me a significantly higher quality of life than I had prior to starting.

The program starts off at a slow pace but quickly ramps up in progressive succession. By the time you are done with the program you will have a simple quote generator, a business/restaurant review site, a two sided video streaming marketplace, and a complex chess application. You’ll also get the taste for writing JavaScript, in depth understanding of object oriented programming, test driven development and learning complex algorithmic processes with the difficult coding challenges that the Firehose Project provides. Oh the coding challenges, they will be the most difficult thing you will do. You will want to, at times, bash your skull in with your keyboard out of frustration but when you get it, and you will, you will have the most uplifting and reassuring confidence boost you have ever experienced.

In addition to the coursework you will be assigned a mentor. Some how Marco and Ken knew exactly the right mentor for me. They paired me up with a seasoned veteran of the software development industry who spent a lot of time developing video games such as Bioshock Infinite, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2. We jumped into our first call and it was super easy talking to him about basically anything. Over the 3 month program my mentor and I got to know each other pretty well and it felt as much as a friendship as it was a mentorship. He helped me through my frustrations, gave me insights into the industry, gave me advice about jobs and the hiring process, pushed me to keep coding more and more difficult things, and taught me information that went beyond the Firehose Project and into the foundations of computer science so that I could fully understand the impact I would have on the systems I’d be interacting with in the real world. My experience with mentor was very much a highlight of the Firehose Project and I was super fortunate to draw the mentor that I did.

When you look at a bootcamp you look mostly at two things, the course work and the mentor. What you will often overlook and not even consider (myself included) is the community and the social interactions within that community. The Firehose Project community is a caring and supportive community encompassing founders, mentors, alumni and students. When you join Firehose you get access to the private G+ community and the Slack channels but on top of that you get office hours, the weekly meeting of students, founders, and mentors to go over things we may have struggled with throughout the week. Access to these social/community channels, if taken advantage of, will give you access, insight, support, friendship with the other Firehosers, and an ability to level up. My experience being a part of the community was a special one for me, many of the digital communities these days are toxic, hellish, and negative battlegrounds of vial opinions but not with the Firehose Project. You don’t see all the negative things that you would in the wild on the internet but what you do see is an overwhelming level of support and kindness to the other Firehosers, something truly special in today’s digital communities. Every one of my interactions in the community were positive and in kind I did my damnedest to return that kindness and support in magnitudes of order. I think communities are as strong as their weakest contributors, if you have a supportive and active community, then you have a strong community, the Firehose Project is a strong community. The community was already primed and welcoming for me to contribute before I began. To play my part I wanted to amp that community up and give my all to it, I want the new students to feel as welcomed as I was when I started. The TL:DR; the Firehose Project community f-ing rocks!

Interacting with the founders was also a great experience. Ken and Marco make everyone feel welcomed from day one, they’re supportive, and they’re completely open to feedback. I have never felt from either one of them that I was simply a dollar figure to them and have always felt, even from the first time I met Marco or Ken, that I am a welcomed and contributing member of the community and the program. To me that speaks volumes for the caliber and quality of character of the founders and honestly was one of, if not the primary, reasons why I joined the Firehose. If a founder or founders truly believe in their product and see their customers as parts of their family and not just dollar figures I know they have a solid product that I too can believe in. Of course they’re selling something, it is a business after all, but what happens is they undersell and over deliver in EVERY aspect of the Firehose Project. From even the pre-work course you get the feeling that they’re not in it to churn out as many students as possible so they can make the highest profits possible. Then when you start the program you realize for them it’s all about empowering people and sharing their passion and joy for programming, that excitement is infectious. I have zero disappointments in the experience and no regrets or hesitation saying that the Firehose Project is worth 10 times the cost of admission!

Continuing in the same vein of community and the founders I’ve got to say everyone is welcoming, open to trying new things and open about improving the community. When I suggested Firehose Project Lightning Talks to the community I thought I would get a “sure, that’s a good idea but it’s not something we can really do right now because we’ve got a lot of things up in the air already” instead I got “That’s a great idea, lets do it!” Everyone seemed excited about it and we had our first ever Firehose Lightning talks in less than 2 weeks after suggesting it, the feedback was positive and it had a great impact on the community. We’re about to hold our second ever community lightning talks this week. In addition to the talks we’ve also got a community Firehose Project blog where students can contribute as writers or developers on the open source environment that we have created for the students. That’s what I mean by the founders are open to ideas and improvements, I never thought I would’ve had the feedback that I had about the lightning talks nor did I ever see it happening that quickly but the founders saw it as a great way to increase the quality of the program and saw the impact it could have on students by getting them comfortable talking about technology, public speaking, and encouraging them to explore beyond the curriculum. That mentality says a lot about the character of the people running the show and how much they care about the community and ecosystem they created.

Those are basically just the highlights reel of my experience at the Firehose Project, if I wrote everything that I have experienced and felt about the Firehose Project I would have a short novel because it truly has been a wonderful experience (you could also just go back through my blog and read my week in review posts). There is a sense of bittersweet sadness accompanied by joy and accomplishment that I have with the Firehose Project and to me that is a sign that it is something truly special. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, I’ve accomplished just as much but very few things upon completion have been accompanied by a feeling of “I just don’t want it to end” most the time it’s “Hell yes, finally it’s over, now I can do this!” With just that mixed bag of emotions I can truly say that this was something special, that the Firehose Project is something truly unique and special, and it will be one of the greatest experiences that I have ever had the great fortunate to be a part of. When I look back on my time at the Firehose Project I can see the leaps and bounds I have taken in pursuit of my new career and passion, I can see the great relationships and friendships I have made and the promising future that is in front of me because of this experience. The best part of the Firehose Project though, I don’t have to leave, I can stick around and contribute, continue to help and improve the community, give my support and encouragement to the new students and do whatever I can to continue to help make it a great experience for everyone who joins. This ladies and gentlemen this is what makes the Firehose Project great, I still want more. More coding, more community, and more Firehose. A big CHEERS and THANK YOU to Ken, Marco, Kevin, Ben, and the whole damn Firehose community! You folks all made this one of the best damn experiences I’ve ever had.

It’s easy to forget and ignore the little things in life but they’re there for a reason and if you can notice them and relish in the gravity of the little things you can exponentially improve your life. The little things have the greatest potential on a daily basis to make positive changes in our perception of the world. It’s these little things that make life grand and beautiful. Yes there are things and moments that are larger than life and live on in our memories for years to follow but they are mostly few and far between. Your perfect job, newborn child, marrying the love of your life; these things only happen once or a couple times in your life. Waking up in the morning with the sun illuminating your beautiful wife (or husband) in golden sunshine, standing in a warm summer breeze, seeing your children’s smile in delight and purity; these things can happen all of the time and will happen frequently in your lifetime and they are just little things. These sort of things can make massive psychological impacts and present positive moods for the rest of the day. There is massive beauty and massive positive gains in the little things.

I, for the most part, take a no bullshit policy. What I mean by that is that I don’t let the everyday bullshit bother me. I’m not perfect at this and sometimes the bullshit lingers longer than I would like but for the most part I’m teflon when it comes to bullshit, it just can’t stick. The biggest reason to this is that it makes no sense to hold onto shit you can’t control. Everyday meaningless bullshit is the opposite of the beauty of the little things. Where the little things can make massive positive changes in your behavior and mood throughout the day, bullshit will consistently make massive negative changes in your behavior and mood throughout the day. That’s precisely why I take a no bullshit policy, I like to live a positive life and do my best to remove myself from any drama that could act as a detriment to that positivity. Letting meaningless shit bother you that you have no control over is, well, meaningless. It’s an act of self sabotage and self harm.

We forget sometimes that our mental state is characteristic of healthiness. When we allow self sabotage and self harm by getting ourselves involved with meaningless bullshit we are in fact damaging our well being. We no longer are healthy, we are sick. The difficult part about this is that we don’t believe we are sick because we don’t look sick. Our eyes tell our mind that you like fine, nothing is wrong but in reality when we let the negativity and bullshit linger in our brains what is happening is a poisoning of our psyche. This type of poisoning can have long term effects in a very negative manner.

Something that I pride myself on is my intelligence and aptitude that I have when it comes to thinking creatively and strategically. I may not be as smart as many but what intelligence that I do have I cherish with everything. When I undertook a no bullshit policy I had to reevaluate how I dealt sickness because most of the stress and anxiety that I had was caused by the everyday meaningless bullshit. It was having very real world consequences on my life but I looked healthy. So I decided I would use my vivid imagination to my advantage. See when life or my fellow humans present me with a bunch of meaningless bullshit I just picture my brain shrinking and shrivelling up like salt on a slug, effectively damaging one the things I cherish the most on the this Earth. I pretend that my mind is the Teflon don and nothing sticks to it, allowing my brain to flourish and be happy.

This imaginative thinking and visual interpretation to an internal problem works just as well in the reverse. When I experience joy in a little thing or something good has happened to me I picture my mind expanding, glowing, and functioning at olympic capacity. I find that the positive reinforcement helps develop positive and good habits. Visualizing my mind being happy, thriving, and growing is much more appealing to me than shriveling and shrinking. It’s all a trick but a trick that works quite well. Generally speaking, I am much more happy on a daily basis than I have ever been in entirety of the 27 years I’ve been breathing the air on Earth. Of course we all have bad days, I’m no exception, but those bad days are few and far between because of a simple no bullshit policy.

We forget about the little things in life and how big of an impact they have on us on a regular basis. We often get too wrapped up in other peoples bullshit that we will forget that it doesn't matter whatsoever, it’s meaningless. We can’t control other people or their actions so we shouldn't allow them or their actions to ruin our own day. It can be something of a chore and a tricky task at first but adapting to a “No Bullshit” policy will have amazing and long term positive effects in our daily life. Get rid of the drama, take joy in the small things, and develop your own Teflon shell. There is no replacement for happiness and we all deserve to be happy no matter how shitty life can get. You are worthy of happiness, we all are, and we all deserve to be happy.

** Addition to original post published at colinrubbert.com.**

Somedays I’m just not inspired to write or rather just not snappy enough to write properly. My brain flattens out and I can’t concentrate on the things that I want to write about. The tasks at hand are not at my fingertips, the words I want to express are not there because I can’t find the things that I want to express. It’s an issue for people who write like this everyday. I want to say something profound but I rarely ever come up with anything profound. When I do, it’s by complete and utter mistake but maybe that’s how profound thoughts are generated. They may be generated when we least want them, when we stop focusing on trying to be profound the profundity comes to us. It works a lot like when you stop looking for a job a great job finds you or when you stop looking for a great girl, a great girl enters your life path. When focusing on the things we really want we sometimes can’t obtain them because we are trying too hard. That’s how I feel many mornings when writing, I struggle to come up with the things that I want to write because I don’t know what to write.

That’s how life is though, when we want something, we are hyper focused on it and we throw as much effort as possible at it, it always feels just out of reach. Then when we stop working so hard to obtain that goal and just before we are ready to give up we get the chance we’ve been looking for the whole time, a moment of ‘EUREKA’; a phone call or email with a job offer, you meet the love of your life, you have an emotional or personal breakthrough. It’s moments like that both makes you realize that you need to work your ass off for your goals and make damn sure you put all the effort into them but also at the same time knowing how to step away from the obstacle and let the obstacle resolve much of the issues all on its own. It’s a brilliant realization when you realize it but at the same time you need to not completely give up nor should you ever be lazy about your endeavours because you expect them to just happen to you. That’s not what I’m saying, I’m saying that if you bust your ass off and hustle to a goal it’s okay to step back from it for a small period of time and regroup and at that regrouping stage is where the things that were giving you issues usually resolve themselves or you have a brilliant moment of clarity.

It’s at these regrouping stages that the real magic happens. That stuff that you don’t see coming. the cosmic convergences take place and what you thought was never going to happen, happens. These moments are things that boost our ego and our sense of worth like no other thing on this Earth. It’s these moments that life seems to function precisely how it’s suppose. All is right in the cosmic universe at the regrouping stages. Sometimes the best solution to a problem is to walk away from the problem, just for a bit. Get perspective, after all that is what life is all about, perspective. You can take these issues you may have and take them as a failure and give up, which I don’t recommend, or you can take them as a message from the cosmos letting you know that you have spent too much time on this problem and you need to step away from it a bit. If you won’t listen to your body and mind, listen to the Universe when it’s trying to tell you something.

When the right opportunity comes along you need to recognize the gift that you have just been given and capitalize on it. We get messages all of the time and it’s our duty and to our great benefit that we keep our eyes open so we can recognize them when we need them because usually that’s when they are presented to us. Opportunity is everywhere and it’s always an option to us. We just need to stop focusing so much on the 5 seconds in the future, sit back and observe what’s around us. The big moments, the moments of clarity or convergence are not always obvious, they take careful observation and openness to believe that something is coming our way that is worth our time. We don’t just sit around wish and hope that we will get a break because it won’t happen, if you’re not putting forth the effort to make shit happen then shit won’t happen. Sometimes even with the effort it doesn’t happen how you planned it but it may happen in another way. See if you don’t put forth the effort to persevere to your goals then the universe will never deem you worthy to having your desires. Shit doesn’t happen to people who don’t try. Shit happens for the hustlers and hard workers.

Your desires, dreams and problems don’t always render into something that you actually wanted but sometimes they provide you with something that you need at the time. Insight, knowledge, companionship, pride, humility, confidence they’re all things that are great to have, they may not be what we wanted but it very could’ve been what we needed at the time. That is more beneficial than a lot of the other shit in the world. I’d take a valuable life lesson that will benefit me for the rest of my years over cheap meaningless financial gain that will only give me stuff. We don’t need stuff, we need us, we need universal lessons that train us to be amazing people not just some rich fuck with a lot of shit because at the end of the day the rich fuck may have everything he wants but it’s never enough and he’s probably miserable but the humble man who was given the gift of personal growth but has little has more than the any financially successful person.

Austin Kleon — Show Your Work

In this series I summarize the ideas from a recent book I’ve read that grabbed my attention. This is just as much about my own attempt at remembering specific material for future reference as it is to share with the world the things that I found interesting in each book I read. Here we are starting with Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work and how appropriate it is that I start with this book, after all I’m showing you my work that went into reading this book.

“Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.” — John Cleese

“Good work isn’t created in a vacuum” pg 11

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.” — Shunryu Suzuki

“I’m an artist, man. Give me a tuba, and I’ll get you something out of it.” — John Lennon

“To all viewers but yourself, what matters is the product: the finished artwork. To you, and you alone, what matters is the process: the experience of shaping the artwork.” — Ted Orland from Art and Fear

“In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen —really seen.” — Brene Brown

“Share something small everyday.” pg 45

“Put yourself, and your work, out there every day, and you’ll start meeting some amazing people.” — Bobby Solomon

“The day is the only unit of time I can really get my head around. Seasons change, weeks are completely human made, but the day has a rhythm. The sun goes up; the sun goes down. I can handle that.” pg 47

“Don’t show your lunch or your latte; show your work.” pg 52

“One day at a time. It sounds so simple. It actually is simple but it isn’t easy; It requires incredible support and fastidious structuring.” — Russell Brand

“The SAVE AS DRAFT button is like a prophylactic — it might not feel as good in the moment, but you’ll be glad you used it in the morning.” pg 59

“If you work on something a little bit every day, you end up with something that is massive.” — Kenneth Goldsmith

“The problem with hoarding is you end up living off of your reserves. Eventually, you’ll become stale. If you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish….Somehow the more you give away, the more comes back yo you.” — Paul Arden

“All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste, but there is this gap. For the first couple years you make sutff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer.” — Ira Glass

“I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you fucking like something, like it.” — Dave Grohl

“In my opinion, the most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles…and the most marvelous examples.” — Michel de Montaigne

“Your work doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Whether you realize is or not, you’re already telling a story about your work. Every email you send, every text, every conversation, every blog comment, every tweet, every photo, every video — they’re all bits and pieces of a multimedia narrative you’re constantly constructing. If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller. You need to know what a good stroy is and how to tell one.” pg 95

“A character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.” — John Gardner

“A good pitch is set up in three acts: The first act is the past, the second act is the present, and the third act is the future. The first act is where you’ve been — what you want, how you came to want it, and what you’ve done so far to get it. The second act is where you are now in your work and how you’ve worked hard and used up most of your resources. The third act is where you’re going, and how exactly the person you’re pitching can help you get there. Like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, this story shape effectively turns your listener into the hero who gets to decide how it ends.” pg 101

“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.” — George Orwell

“The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.” — Annie Dillard

“You should feel pity for these people and their delusions. At some point, they didn’t get the memo that the world owes none of us anything.” pg 124

“No matter how famous they get, the forward-thinking artists of today aren’t just looking for fans or passive consumers of their work, they’re looking for potential collaborators, or co-conspirators.” pg 126

“If you want to be interesting you have to be interested.” pg 131

“Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.” — Derek Sivers

“Part of the act of creating is in discovering your own kind. They are everywhere. But don’t look for them in the wrong places.” — Henry Miller

“Meeting people online is awesome, but turning them into IRL friends is even better.” pg 145

“The trick is not caring what EVERYBODY thinks of you and just caring about what the RIGHT people think of you.” — Brian Michael Bendis

“We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.” — Walt Disney

“The biggest problem of success is that the world conspires to stop you doing the thing that you do, because you are successful.” — Neil Gaiman

“You just have to be as generous as you can, but selfish enough to get you work done.” pg 177

“Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.” — Michael Lewis

“Work is never finished, only abandoned.” — Paul Valery

“You can’t count on success; you can only leave open the possibility for it, and be ready to jump on and take the ride when it comes to you.” pg 185

“Author Ernest Hemingway would stop in the middle of a sentence at the end of his day’s work so he knew where to start in the morning.” pg 187

“Here’s how you do it: Instead of taking breaks in between projects, waiting for feedback, and worrying about what’s next, use the end of one project to light up the next one.” pg 189

“The minute you stop wanting something you get it.” — Andy Warhol

“Every two or three years, I knock off for a while. That way , I’m constantly tyhe new girl in the whorehouse.” — Robert Mitchum

“Being Again.” pg 196

“On to the next pipe dream.” pg 198

“Go back to chapter one —literally!—and become an amateur. Look for something new to learn, and when you find it, dedicate yourself to learning it out in the open.” pg 199

Those were the nuggets of great importance that I took from the book. Most of them are out of context and it really does serve the book nuggets much more justice when they are put in the context of the book. The book overall was a phenomenal book and inspired some great thoughts and actions. The book itself should be in your aresenal of creativity and inspirations. Show your work people! I am.

When I became older and paid more attention, my dislike for Glenn didn’t change, not one bit, if anything he infuriated me more. I could never really understand why until I got much older. It was the way his persona presented itself to me. His style, his unwavering ability to never hear someone else’s side of the story, and consistently preaching. I think this was a prerequisite to work at Fox. Like I said I really don’t like being preached to. Over the years I have steadily ignored anything Glenn had to say and yes I was being closed minded about him and what he stood for, however, I always knew he was an intelligent guy, I just felt he was incredibly wrong.

Enter the interview, I’ll start off saying I went into this with an open mind, I truly did. I have faith that you know what you are doing, you have the skill and knowledge to pick a good guest, and if you personally suggested it then there had to be some value in it that I could gain. So again, trying to be objective with my view points and opinions on Glenn when they have been so subjective and negative was a big leap for me.

Let’s start with what I didn’t like, Glenn’s style, I don’t like it at all. The first third of the interview he presented himself with this persona and poor me sympathy tone without actually saying poor me. Glenn speaks with this quiet reserved tone, making you turn up the sound or come in closer, and he does it incredibly well. This tactic is a very effective tactic to manipulate your crowd subconsciously to pay more attention. Then the cresendo and then back to quiet and reserved. Great speakers and orators have been doing this for millenia simply because it works. It makes the audience hang onto every word you say and manipulates them into thinking they are genuine in what they are saying. I think this is bullshit and just a mask that people put on to coerce someone to think or agree with them because no one really talks like that in real life. So immediately I was put off in the interview by Glenn’s style. And this is my first surprise, it really is the only bad thing that I can say about the interview is this stupid mask and speaking manipulation that Glenn uses to present himself, it feels fake to me.

With all the negative shit set aside and out of the way, I learned a lot. I had never thought that Glenn motherfucking wack job Beck and I could ever have anything in common and scarily we have more in common that I truly feel comfortable admitting to. The first surprising thing that I found out was that he is a recovering addict and has dealt with a lot of trauma and tradegidies that are associated with that. Enter the first thing we have in common, I am a recovering addict as well and I too have traveled down my paths and have experienced similar tragedies that he has experienced. Here I tarted to be piece together why he presents the way he does and why he is the way he is. Things started making sense and I started to look at him in a different light. But there was still this guile persona he was presenting that I found off putting.

Next some of the things he said about creativity and struggle, I surprisingly agree with him in many regards. Hello, welcome to surprise number two. I was thinking to myself I literally must be going insane that I actually am agreeing with this son of a bitch. I was opening up to the idea that I may have misjudged Glenn and never saw Glenn as a person but a personality that was presented on TV and radio. I was starting to see him as human.

The third surprise came in the form of laughter. I laughed, not at Glenn or his idiocracy but with him and at his humor. Seriously, I must be fucking insane! The greatest parts of the interview is when Glenn dropped his shtick and showed himself. At those moments I saw Glenn not as someone I hated in the media for manipulating the world but as someone I could see myself hanging out with at a coffee shop having deep conversations about life and a mirad of other topics. There was this guy, raw and unfiltered, just simply human. When the mask was lowered and Glenn showed his face that was the true gem of the episode. And it was a pleasure to see that.

While I most likely won’t be running out to subscribe to his channel or purchase all of his books, I feel something more profound came out of it than I thought could, I respect Glenn Beck. Yep, I totally lost it, I’m officially a nutter. I never thought I would ever utter those words, I respect Glenn Beck. WOW. If only he would lower that mask more often, get away from the subconscious style of speech he uses, and show his genuine self without the facade, I’d be in. I wouldn’t be in because I believe in the principles or ideas he has but I would be open to hearing about them and would love to be able to discuss and debate them with him.

Srini you were right when you said I would be surprised, I certainly am. For many years now I have been opening my mind to other possibilites and opinions that I had so strongly defended as a youth. You have helped pull the veil, even just for a brief moment in time, to see the man behind the mask, to open my mind to the possibility that this man is not a monster and that my initial assumptions were wrong. Srini once again thank you for doing the right thing and challenging the status quo. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have so amazing new doors opened up to me. Thank you and keep surprising me!

Fantasy, imagination, the unconscious mind, and the subconscious brain have long captured my thoughts and attention. I find it fascinating that even when our logical brains and our extremely rationed realities seem to be the dominate force in our daily lives that there is always a part of our brain spiking in and out of influence. However, from research, we know throughout the day our subconscious brain guides us more often than our conscious mind, however strong the impact of the subconscious brain is we still don’t fully understand it. What strikes me even more fascinating is that when we are asleep all rationale and reasoning goes out the window, completely. Fantasy and imagination take control and become the dominate force. The parts of our brains that control rationale and reasoning completely shut off and the parts of our brain that handles emotion and fantasy explode into activity, this deactivation of rationale and reasoning and the activation of emotion and fantasy is why we have such fantastical dreams. It is why we have nightmares, why we have grand adventures, and why we have such vivid sexual or passionate dreams. Two of the most powerful emotions are fear and love/lust, scientists believe this is the reason why, absent of rationale and reason, the emotional part of our brains explode into activity and why we will, more often than not, have dreams revolving around fear or love/lust. For me personally most my dreams revolve around love (in all its incarnations: lust, passion, or logical abandon), the older I get the less my world is controlled by fear and in return my dreams are also controlled less by fear. The strange part is that dreams of love can quickly change into dreams of fear and pain. The brain has a unique ability to switch drastically from one polar opposite emotion to the other, just like a light switch.

“Dreams must be heeded and accepted. For a great many of them come true.” — Paracelsus

Fantasy is a major factor in our lives, it is important for human development and more important for the development of creativity. Fantasy allows us to use our imagination and dream about things that we desire. It can give us focus or lend discovery to a particular subject matter. In the world of creativity having excellent fantasy and imagination skills is extremely valuable with a massive ROI. Which is why it astonishes me that kids that are daydreaming during class or at home get yelled at and told to pay attention. I use to be one of those kids, shit I still am. I daydream all the time, it allows me to imagine a world that I want to live in, a life that I want to lead, and it gives me the fantastical ideas that I can then work into reality. I wish authority and adult figures would embrace the daydreaming kid, instead of yelling and snapping at them they should ask the kid to share his imagination, group all the kids together and do a creative expression project. Instead of the kid being chastised for being imaginative, the kid would be rewarded with ability to express themselves with a class project that where everyone gets to participate and the class builds the fantasy world into reality, ultimately learning to dream together. Obviously some kids fantasy worlds are dangerous but this could also be a means to identify patterns in “at risk” kids and get them help they need and deserve before it is too late.

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” — Dr. Suess

Fantasy and imagination are often looked down upon and as a staple ineptitude with things like “that boy is too dumb to be able to pay attention to class material”, something I myself have overheard teachers saying. This notion of ineptness or stupidity is complete bullshit, maybe your fucking class and your world is too boring, too mind numbing, and stripped of any individuality that we fantasizers and dreamers need to project ourselves into another world. Imagination and fantasy should be nurtured and expressed into constructive works.

“He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher… or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.” — Douglas Adams

Fantasy should be embraced as individuality and a unique view upon the world. As creatives or aspiring creatives we need to embrace our individuality and our fantasies. Nurturing our fantasies to produce works of creativity is by far the most important aspect in creative endeavors, it allows us to perform at our peak. This writing was inspired by a dream I had about a girl from a bygone era in my life. It’s a creative expression of a fantasy that I had through a dream, an exploration into why fantasy and imagination are important, most of the things I feel are important that I do are inspired by my fantasies and imagination. Pursuing photography, writing, and travel were first developed from a fantasy that I have about the adventurers and explorers of the 1700’s and 1800’s. Even though I’m not from that era I fantasize about traveling the world, exploring and experiencing the worlds that famous adventurers did, then capture them in time with my photography. It is a pursuit that I am actively working on, which was born from a fantasy I had as a boy. Creativity is directly connected to fantasy and imagination, we need to stop looking at people fantasizing as less intelligent because they can’t stay focused on the “real” world but more intelligent because they chose to dream and imagine what the world could be like. These people see the world in a different way, they can change, bend, and manipulate the world in their minds to generate a new perspective. This is not ineptitude, this is creative dominance. Embrace dominance and thrive on your fantasies and imagination.

“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.” — Albert Einstein

Originally posted at colinrubbert.com