My message to my fellow humans: Emacs is good

Interesting how nobody said: "you're welcome" [yet]. It's almost like we all feel like that's how it should be - this is normal. We like to talk about Emacs - no need to thank for it. I can, of course, only speak for my own reasons to be vocal about Emacs. If I could grow a colossal beard and had a lot of money, I'd be living like Tolstoy, wishing for my last dying words to be: "but the programmers, how do the programmers die?..."¹

I care about other people suffering. And make no mistake. Programming is suffering. Oh yeah. Of course, things always depend on how your brain processes it, but some of the shit that your body has to pay to be doing this stuff as your life choice is undeniable - we, software professionals, get carpal tunnel syndrome, back and neck pain, occipital neuralgia. Computer vision syndrome, headaches, acid reflux, insulin resistance, weight gain, obesity. We get insomnia. We get anxiety. Sometimes it just fucking hurts. And any possibility to reduce this shit and be happy at your job is just good fucking news.

Using Emacs. Like truly using it - reading and writing Elisp and all. It's just awesome. It simply feels awesome. It makes me feel good. It's one of the pillars of things that make my job a genuinely happy thing. And it's just weird that it took me a long time to find it. Of course I could have just said: "Oh, truly, I don't care if the entire world doesn't feel like me - I'd still be using it", and that's partially true. But I want to think that I care about people, and every effort to reduce suffering is commendable. I think every human gets to some point when they feel the urge to "spill the knowledge", because that's biologically who we are. Our brains are designed around the fact that we use other people as an information source. That's how our species survives. My message to my fellow humans is: "Emacs is good."

And I honestly don't know why I have not found Emacs sooner. Maybe because I wasn't looking around. Maybe I didn't listen, or maybe because I didn't hear people around me talking about Emacs. And I feel most software engineers at some point or another do try Emacs. It just feels so stupid if they wouldn't. And it's probably still hard. For me, it was hard. I gave up multiple times. I just couldn't get why a damn stupid text editor could have reasons to be this difficult. It's probably a lot easier today with LLMs. Maybe on the contrary, maybe it's actually harder, I wouldn't know - I've long forgotten my beginner's journey. But damn, I wish somebody truly convincingly kept encouraging me. I would have found my happy place sooner. That's why I try to help. I just want people to be happy. And sometimes that's difficult. Some speak as if they try to lecture me about why they should believe in "the paradise", and why they should "die for it". I'm imagining spending a few weeks to learn a tool may feel like dying, or maybe they just can't afford that. I've been wanting to learn a bunch of things. They sound great. Maybe they would make me even happier, but I honestly just don't have time to afford them. Some may say: "well, maybe if you didn't spend so much time messing with Emacs"... But, here's the thing. Messing with Emacs is actually the way you properly use Emacs. And no, it doesn't take so much time. Trying to convince people to give an honest try to using Emacs actually takes far more time than "messing with Emacs".

Anyway, thank you for the courage to learn things and to be curious, and thanks for the courage to be vocal. And, of course, you're very welcome. Welcome to your happy place.

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¹ Leo Tolstoy's most famously recorded last words were, "But the peasants… how do the peasants die?"