Ask YC: In the hack of life, is it the people or the code?
The first time I tackled on the project of life was during high school, when I decided to quit Computer Science. I was frustrated by those surrounded me, who cared about U.S News & Report college rankings than the possibility of the subjects that we were learning then. Too often, we talked about too a bland thing - maybe we were all not-so-very-daring, conversations centered around homeworks, college, computer games and sports, and not upon the philosophy or the very core of human affinity for another that I was searching for. I felt that I was isolated from the mainstream society - like Bobby Fischer tinkering on an abstract chessboard in his head - what's the point if there's no one who could appreciate the beauty of the algorithm as you do?
So I went to a small, non-technical, liberal artsy college, bent on starting afresh. For the first two years of college, I tried to meet as many interesting people as I could, people, for a lack of a better phrase and to plagiarize Jack Kerouac, burn, burn, burn. So I went to hipster parties, concerts, and have had many a late-night conversation with someone, I meshed in the "social scene" of college, I had made lots of friends - I have met a few amazing people whom I could relate closet ever in my life. I daresay that I felt even happy for a time-being, except not. It was like a second language to me. I was fluent in the social subtleties, what to say at what time, but I said it like I was in a sheep's clothing - like I was LAMP developer forced to use .net tools for money. I hated that I couldn't be my true self, that I had to dress a certain way, that I had to have a specific set of approved outlooks and opinions, that I had to attend or do certain activities identified with a sub-culture, just to fit in.
So I decided to start all over again, and start programming again. I re-discovered the joy of striking it on your own, building something concrete out of just a trace of inspiration in your mind, a itch that you just wana scratch, doing it because you want to do it, not to placate anyone else. But at the same time, I alienated myself from all of my friends - in my cocoon of midnight bliss of hacking, I could care less about the everyday social small talk BS or superficial parties filled with even more superficial people. But always, after finishing a big project, I would hit a wall because after initial ecstasy, because I realize that I had been staying in my room for a whole week straight and haven't had talked to anyone for a long time.
I realize that my little tirade sounds a little bit like "Catcher in the Rye," the CS major edition. But I would like to know your experience as a hacker/programmer living in the real world filled not with news.yc/slashdot people, but with regular people.
In the hack of life for happiness, in the long-run is it about the people or the code?