The Dance of Daemons

I'm typing these lines at Espressolab Cafe, Empire Subang. Had some salad for dinner and here I am trying to figure what to write for today's blog post. I'm feeling quite exhausted from all the work I did over the past few days. It is great to have a reason to work.

I wrote about Aristotle's Eudaimonia last week. 'Daimon' means spirit in Greek--the original root of our word, demon, or the slightly more archaic version 'daemon'. Eudaimonia can be loosely translate as 'good (eu) spirit (daimon)'. That's another key to understanding the meaning of Eudaimonia: there's a spirit within us that seeks to be aligned with a purpose. For some reason, the more modern version of the word,'demon' has come to mean something evil. But daemons are a different story.

When you boot up a computer system that is running Unix (like the laptop that I'm using now), you will find lot of processes running in the background--also called 'daemons' in Unix parlance. I love writing daemons--they are processes that work quietly in the background providing useful services, essential to the health of the entire system.

Maybe daemons reflect my natural inclination--I too enjoy working quietly in the background. I'm happy as long as I'm doing useful work and serving my purpose. Daemons never blow their own trumpet. You'll never know they exist. But when they fail, something will go wrong.

Some people are meant to be loud--like graphical user interfaces (GUIs). They display themselves to the world. They too serve their purpose in their own way. The world needs both background daemon processes and GUIs to function well. Come to think of it, 'GUI' is Hokkien for 'ghost'. It looks like these creatures from the netherworld make the world go round.

Processes which have died but for some reason have not been cleaned up by the operating system, are called 'zombie processes'. These category of creatures are absolutely useless. They are processes who used to do useful work but have somehow crashed or died an unnatural death. Their resources have not been properly reclaimed by the operating system. If you have worked in any large company before, you'll know that they are employees who are like zombies. They occupy space, draw salaries but do not contribute anything useful at all. Some have degenerated into such a state because they have lost their motivation to work.

That is why it is important to always have a purpose in life--telos in Greek. Telos is central to Aristotle's philosophy. Everything in the universe has an inherent purpose. A purpose is simple a goal and direction. Whether there's a universal divine purpose to our lives or not is immaterial. Even a nihilistic existentialist will tell you to define your own subjective purpose and pursue it. Without a purpose, nothing happens in the universe.

So be actively like those daemons--dancing quietly in the background serving their individual duties. The alternative is becoming a zombie.