I've been fascinated by a peculiar breed of humans, the kind who are willing to code or assemble circuits for a single project, they continue working for 30 hours with no sleep and are still energetic and excited to show the world whatever they've built. I had the priviledge of hanging out with these monsters in the hackathon organised by The Residency. It wasn't just the intense focus on the project but the motivation driving them. The prize was a 1500$, which is a pretty good cash prize, but the chances were low considering that it was being held worldwide with SF, NY, Dubai and much more cities participating. Despite this being the case, everyone submitted, the desire was something deeper, for some it was to level up, for some it was to build something that they can be proud of, for some who had left their jobs to start something, it was a need.
This got me thinking about the Maslow's heirarchy, a concept that I across thanks to my professor in college. We were all too dumb to understand it then but it's such an interesting way to understand behaviours. The motivations here belonged mostly to the self esteem zone, a higher form of satisfaction which is something non Hackers dont experience. The joy you get after creating something beautiful cannot be described. This might sound completely alien if you're someone who likes your schedule and the clear boundaries with work and the other things that make you happy. My problem with that side is, they aren't happy with their work either. These people hate their jobs and yet do nothing about it.
I had been in a horrible mood for the past few weeks and this process of building and shipping something with a group of builders rejuvenated me and led to a conclusion that is atleast true for me.
"Working on projects of your own is the highest form of happiness on the scale of all the superficial things we do to feel happy."