A blog post by Stephen Bailey articulating ideas I've thought about but never seen anyone else consider;

1. An aggressive¹ attitude can drive progress - it's one of the mental tools in the toolbox.
2. Software engineering is a craft - I am a craftsman. Not an artist, and not a technician.

The active and violent spirit of the postdoc is a critical difference in the ways that early- and mid-career professionals grow in their craft.

It takes animus to push conversations out from the boring straits of explanation and pedantry and into the frothy, conflicting waves of exploration and world expansion. It takes a bit of pirate swagger. It takes a separation of the world into mateys and landlubbers.

After the beginner’s scaffolding of skills, what matters is the mechanism for deciding what’s next. That’s where opinion and aversion — not reason! — comes in.