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Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sometimes creativity is a compulsion, not an ambition. --Ed Norton

Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money. --Robert Jackson

Halfway through banging on my keyboard like an excited ape, I realized that I had stopped trying to make a simple website and was trying to solve some really general web programming tasks. Maybe I let my project become too ambitious. In the past I was known for that, but I found a solution. Always solve the easier problem. It's the complete opposite of how you're taught to approach a series of obstacles. I frequently leave the harder tasks until last, marking their spot in my code with a 'TODO' or 'FIXME' comment.

I can't stop working on this project. I'm not doing it for money. The idea of the website in my head is so cool that I will do anything to finish it. Usually I release my code on help forums in snippets to keep my identity anonymous. That makes me dangerous to some people. I don't want fame or even earned recognition. I really don't care how people feel about me. Either I have helped them or hurt them. I am only interested in helping people.

Ambition can result in outcomes like Governor Blagojevich is experiencing right now. That happens when your greatest desire involves you directly. That sort of ambition can never help anyone but yourself. The irony is that for that sort of corruption to work, there has to be a community of people only trying to better their own position.

We need to move the creation of new laws online and into Wikis. Open source the government, reduce costs, increase direct involvement, encourage an informed populous, increase individual power, and tear down the walls we have erected to hold power in, away from the people. If you hold on to something too tightly, you can accidentally destroy it. Maybe I need to scale back the dream I have for this project I'm working on. It won't hurt anyone but me, and my own ambition.