This started out as a post on my phlog [1], but it started getting too long there...
I distracted myself from a couple of tricky work situations that have no obvious solution by giving some thought to how I can improve my calendar.txt system.
One of its weaknesses is that there isn't any way to add recurring events. I'm not much of a coder, but I thought it should be possible to script a means of adding events, including recurring events, without opening the txt file. This would be especially useful on my phone, where I experience some friction getting into the txt file with termux and vim.
The appeal of this sort of problem is that, however fiddly it becomes, there is a point at which it is solved. The script works. The event appears in the right place. The recurring dates are generated correctly. You test it a few times, find the mistakes, fix them, and eventually arrive somewhere you can say: Yes. That does what I wanted it to do.
A good deal of my working life isn't like that at all. As a Superintendent minister I spend quite a lot of time with situations in which there may be no clean solution, only a choice between imperfect possibilities. People have different needs, different histories and different hopes. Sometimes the best you can do is listen carefully, make the wisest judgement you can, and live with the fact that there is no little message saying "Success" at the end.
Perhaps that's part of why tinkering with calendar.txt is so satisfying. For an hour or two I can inhabit a world in which problems are bounded, errors can be traced, and there really is such a thing as finished.
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[1]
gopher://gopher.club:70/1/users/revrichard
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richard <AT> deckzero <DOT> uk