Hope this isn't too dumb a question, but which religious tradition is the Corpus Hermeticum associated with? Neoplatonism is the closest I could think of for it...
Thank you so much for putting this out there! You might be seeing me at some point when we're both much much grayer, but even if it proves to be too much for me to achieve in this lifetime this is helping round out my own spiritual education. I think there are a lot of people out there in a similar position to me, so even if you don't get too many people to go out to Rhode Island, I hope you don't think your mission isn't succeeding!
The metaphor that's sticking to me today is viewing this entire body of work as "open source religion." The majority of people simply use the technology that's out there. If something goes wrong, they'll report their issue and hope those in power change it. They have little say in how their chosen technology is developed, but they don't have to put in that much work to get amazing results.
I used to work at an open source technology company and some of my favorite moments there were responding to customer complaints by saying "here's the codebase and community guidelines, I'm excited to see the new features you add to our product!"
It's MUCH more work to get something done with open source tools. If you're in the habit of blaming others when you screw up, you'll be very frustrated when something goes wrong, and you're better off accepting the hole you dug yourself in and calmly dig yourself out.
The reward is at the end of the process you have created something you know inside and out. You're not just using a product, you're participating in it's creation.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2023-07-03 10:52 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for putting this out there! You might be seeing me at some point when we're both much much grayer, but even if it proves to be too much for me to achieve in this lifetime this is helping round out my own spiritual education. I think there are a lot of people out there in a similar position to me, so even if you don't get too many people to go out to Rhode Island, I hope you don't think your mission isn't succeeding!
The metaphor that's sticking to me today is viewing this entire body of work as "open source religion." The majority of people simply use the technology that's out there. If something goes wrong, they'll report their issue and hope those in power change it. They have little say in how their chosen technology is developed, but they don't have to put in that much work to get amazing results.
I used to work at an open source technology company and some of my favorite moments there were responding to customer complaints by saying "here's the codebase and community guidelines, I'm excited to see the new features you add to our product!"
It's MUCH more work to get something done with open source tools. If you're in the habit of blaming others when you screw up, you'll be very frustrated when something goes wrong, and you're better off accepting the hole you dug yourself in and calmly dig yourself out.
The reward is at the end of the process you have created something you know inside and out. You're not just using a product, you're participating in it's creation.