The night before my last training course, at 3 in the morning, I jumped out of my bed in terror, convinced I had overslept and was late for my teaching commitment.
The funny thing is this happens almost every time I teach on a different timezone. Luckily, I go back to bed and fall asleep within seconds. I love my brain.
In the end, I’m always early for my class, with more than enough time to prepare and greet students in a relaxed mood.
I’m reading Antifragile, and in the middle of the discussion about Overcompensation, it occurred to me that waking up at night can be my brain overcompensating for other insecurities. I’m spending precious brain cycles making absolutely sure I don’t miss my alarm clock and default on my responsibility, even though I’ve already set two or three phone alarms.
The idea of overcompensation and antifragility got me thinking about software - of course. It’s common to think about writing robust software, and we take measures like duplication, advanced error recovery techniques, restart automation, buffering capacity, etc.
But when posed with the challenge to build antifragile software, things get hairy. How can one possibly build a system that benefits from stress or disorder?
I suppose reading the whole book can help. 70 pages done, only 640 to go.