The Happy Moron

The Philosophy

Look at the happy moron,
He doesn’t give a d***.
I wish I was a moron…
My God! Perhaps I am!

Some things are not worth the attention we pay them. But how about the other areas, the ones we hold sacred but which really don’t matter at all? When we defend trivial things with rigour and violence, is that wise?

“For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.” — Ecclesiastes 1:18 (NIV)

The promise of knowledge seems to be that it brings us power and control. Once we gain control (the promise goes) we gain supremacy to banish sorrow and live in happiness. But what happens when the only thing knowledge teaches us is that we truly have no control?

“Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” — 1 Corinthians 1:25

The idea that wisdom is not necessarily intuitive frightens me. The possibility of a disconnect between wisdom and the appearance of wisdom is an uncomfortable thought. The Word is clear, however. If you remain married to the appearance of wisdom you must be prepared to sacrifice the real thing, and vice versa.

The Person

Personally, I’m a Christian. You could call me a prayer junkie. It might not be gracious, but it might be accurate. Living in God’s world is quite an experience.

Professionally, I work as a software developer. I’m fascinated by language and by the tools and techniques we use to manage complexity. The challenges in software development are people problems. They’re problems of understanding, of communication, of description.

How can we resolve a system down to its essential nature, right down to the simplest thing that can possibly work?
What tools and techniques best equip us to do that?
How do we, as people, get in the way of that?

The Blog

The Happy Moron tells a story, in a fractured, fragmented way. The story isn’t necessarily about me, although I suspect I’m in it. I’m not even necessarily the author, although I do a little bit of the telling and a little bit of aggregation, piecing together small bits of the story from all across the world.

Only you can say what the story is about, because you’ve read it in your own unique way. You’ve written a little bit of it, yourself, by coming to visit, and just by reading. If a blog tells a story then the main characters must surely be the readers.

I wish you an interesting story; I sincerely hope that parts of it are fun or poignant or informative. I invite you to exercise your creative muscle and leave a chapter on a comment page (unless you’re a spam bot. Spam bots play a role in the story, but strictly as the faceless minions of an evil emperor – don’t be one of those ).

How does the story end? I’m not sure any of us can say, but stay tuned for the next chapter…