My return statement

It’s something of a carriage

As my batch at Recurse Center fades in the rear view mirror of my life I am confronted with both the bliss I found there and the eternal longing to return. Recurse is a special place unlike no other. Essentially it is a programming retreat. I often describe it as a hackers collective. It can be described as many things and I think it is different for everyone who attends. Some people learn a new skill, others emerge from the shell or cocoon they found themselves in, and yet others find a community they cannot lose and move themselves to nyc to be closer to it. Connecting them together is an affinity and love for computers and computing whether it’s vibe coding a silly RCTV app, teaching everyone Clojure, streaming Zork binaries to an Apple iie across an audio cable, or creating a new Recurse Center building access key device that is also a social connection and tamagotchi.

They have special rules that tell you what not to do: No subtle -isms, no “well actually’s”, no feigning surprise that a person doesn’t know what they don’t know. These are important to set boundary conditions for any community. But what Recurse also does is set boundary conditions on the other side of the space telling you what you should be doing. These are called the self directives.

Self directives are what you should be doing at Recurse (and also in life tbh). Do work at the edge of your abilities, build your volitional muscles (your ability to get started on something hard), and definitely learn generously. And when in doubt code. The first week of every new batch Emily reminds people of these at the end of the first set of presentations and also to remember that comparing yourself to others is impossible. They only presented what worked, not the dozens of things that didn’t. I cry every time I hear her tell this. I cry now writing and remembering it.

Absorbing these lessons of Recurse Center changed me. They changed who I am. They made me more accepting and inclusive of others. Recurse pushed me in directions I didn’t think I would ever go in. I built Zork Bench.

I began to accept parts of myself that I never knew existed and other parts I long ignored. I began to believe that I could do many things I used to wait for permission to do. We did so many fun things at Recurse and I am so happy to be a part of this community. My main fear is I didn’t give enough back to Recurse based on how much I got. One thing that I really loved was that I found the time to build rainy-city.com.

rainy-city.com continues to grow as I create more ways to experience it. I want to create more characters, so far Jennifer is the star of the show but I imagine she gets tired of living in a rainy world with only Frank the weatherman to keep her company. More rainy-city.com projects will follow but for now there is the Instagram and the site and streets of rainy-city.com (see the opening video below) and also rainy city events (showing the movie Hackers (1995) this week in Utrecht). Maybe one day I create rainy city television.

One of my most favorite things at Recurse (besides the people), is RCTV.

I love making silly things to put on rctv. The sky is the limit as you can create anything on a webpage and put it there. For example.

But more than this Recurse made me feel like I belonged somewhere just for being me. I never felt so accepted before. What they have created at Recurse is very special. If you like computers apply. You won’t regret it. I definitely never thought I would find someplace like this on planet Earth.

John Aiken has a PhD in physics, is editor-in-chief of low impact fruit, mayor of rainy-city.com, a Recurser, and passionate about saving the whales. Currently John lives in The Netherlands, happily hacking away at various problem spaces usually related to computers.