Zeitgeist

(If you like to listen to music while you read my posts, I suggest “Violent Dreams” by Crystal Castles.)

A couple of weeks ago, I presented at PNSQC on not being a testing asshole.  Although my presentation was the end of a lengthy personal journey for me, there was a moment in the middle of the journey which is preserved in a blog post.

You see, I had to find my way through a wall of my own emotional trauma in order to stand up in front of a paying audience and say that IT IS NOT OK TO BE A TESTING ASSHOLE.  We all have moments like this when we reach the bottom of something we feel will be endless.  For me this moment is preserved in my post, “Let’s Destroy the World.”  There’s no way you would know, but I was a weepy mess when I pressed publish on that one as a I was letting go of some really awful things.  I found myself at a bottom.

When you’re at the bottom of a tectonic shift happening in your life, it is not uncommon to question.  Where am I? Who am I? Am I going the right way or will I spiral back down again?  I asked myself all of these questions and more as I pressed publish on Let’s Destroy the World.”

This is the point where you start looking for signs.  I once had a beautiful friend who decided to join a monastery, and for him, the sign was a white rose.

For me “the sign” was this year’s announcement of the Google Test Automation Conference, “Test is Dead” which was serendipitously posted  5 days after “Let’s Destroy the World.”  My friend and fellow testing blogger, Chris McMahon called it Zeitgeist.  It should come as no surprise that I will be at GTAC this week.  (Hey attendees…us Mozillians are throwing y’all a party.  I’ll be the girl in the elevator between 7:00 and 8:00, wearing the red leopard print skirt.  ;)  )

There is plenty of criticism that can be heaped on those of us writing and presenting on the theme “testing is dead,” but as I wrote in my last post, I feel it as more of a transformation or rebirth.  There are people in this world who have no problem dealing with the messiness, chaos and defying of logic that come with birth and transformation.  I suggest that if you’re so attached to logic that change is inconceivable, you suspend your belief for a few moments and play with what “could be” instead of what you insist upon as “the way.”  Not everything we dream of will remain, but it’s the best way I’ve found of clearing a path into the maze of the unknown.

With GTAC, I once more find myself racing into a labryinth of unknowns and uncertainties, but I now know that this is where I live and feel most comfortable.  These are the people I work with, the people I play with and the people who feed my dreams.  You see, I don’t live in the future or the past, but when I look in the mirror I see them.  This week my mirror is GTAC.

Hey testers…how soon is now?

Apart from the upcoming GTAC, this post was inspired by an interview with William Gibson tweeted by @chris_blain.