Every now and then I have this “seeing the matrix” moment with software, especially software for tracking things like food or water intake or whatever.
Like, my base, natural reaction to assume there’s all this complexity behind it and to assume I’m being judged for what I put in.
Like if I track coffee later in the day, someone (the system? employees?) is judging me, like “tsk tsk, you slept in” but also like there’s some complex tracking going on where now it’s going to make certain assumptions based on me being up late.
But then this clarity will hit me, like, “These are just entries in a database with binary data representing the values I input. Nobody is looking at this but me. After today, even I won’t look back at this beyond maybe the total final numbers at the end of the day.”
I think it started when I started making my own apps of this sort, because when I’d use mine, I’d have that feeling like I don’t want the complex behavior to misread something from my data and then I’m like, “What complex behavior? These are just numbers I store in a database and display back on this exact screen.”
So then when using other apps it started to dawn on me that they’re not doing anything fancy either, and even if they are, it doesn’t matter, because the app isn’t going to be that complex, and even if they can access the data, they’re not judging me, and even if they were, who cares? They don’t know me and I don’t know them.
But I always start from that irrational stance and then like suddenly as I’m thinking about it, I just, like, see the matrix, and then I realize it doesn’t matter.
