Truly beautiful and powerful words from Prot, as always. I feel greatly moved by this poem.

From Wikipedia, a journeyman is "a worker, skilled in a given building trade or craft, who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification.". He is someone that showed dedication and fought through adversities to master his skill: someone can can be looked up to. Yet there are many "unknown" journeymen, especially in the world of programming, there are so many professionals that are doing excellent and critical work but are greatly under-recognized and underappreciated (maybe Prod is thinking of his condition, and the one of other maintainers).

Someone that mastered their skills can motivate us into working harder and harder. It surely does for me. He made a promise to himself, and so do I, to never give up.

The second part of the poem explores this idea, and it words it beautifully.

I find a deep stoic meaning in this poem, to keep going through life nevertheless.

---

Travel: Collected Favourites, Index