Beats That Defined My Twenties
In previous posts, I explored the aesthetic of subtraction through the guitar and the search for an intended path within the infinite freedom of the piano. We dismantled those instruments like code to find the hidden order within their mechanics. Now, I turn to the final chapter of this trilogy to write about the invisible yet intensely physical reality known as rhythm.
The story of the drum must be written with a slightly different texture than the others.
While the guitar and piano were subjects of inquiry or cherished hobbies, the drum was my entire twenties. As a drummer in a university band, I spent more time between the soundproofed walls of a damp club room than in the library. The impact of stick against skin was more than a performance. It was the absolute venting of youth. My obsession with the metronome’s tick served as both a compulsion for mechanical precision and a euphoric release.
Because the drum was not merely an instrument but an object of love and hate that proved my existence, I will borrow the format of a short memoir for this final chapter. I want to follow the tempo of my memories rather than dry analysis.
My obsession began in middle school. I witnessed a live church band performance and was captivated by the thumping bass drum. Having no means to learn, I frequented the arcade to satisfy my craving with a rhythm game. The desire grew uncontrollable in high school, leading to a week-long hunger strike when my mother refused to send me to a drum academy. We eventually compromised on an acoustic guitar, which allowed me to learn from a friend and enter the world of music.
The desire for the drums never faded, leading me to make a bold deal during university applications. I agreed to trade the prestige of a university in Seoul for a local national university my mother preferred. My condition was strict: I would not work a single part-time job for four years so I could play the drums to my heart's content in the school band.
People assume university bands are only for experienced players, but our school had a unique and brutal training system. The first year was a strict preparation period where we did nothing but hit a practice pad and serve as roadies. Only in our sophomore year did we finally stand on stage as protagonists. The cost was severe. It demanded three hours of practice every evening during the semester and nine hours a day during vacations. We had to forfeit all other social life to go all-in on this single club.
I loved the efficiency of securing exclusive rights to a magnificent drum set just by enduring a year of hitting a pad. However, I had to accept the limitations of the club's education. Because sophomores with only one year of experience taught the freshmen through oral tradition, I realized I would never reach a professional level. I took drastic measures and joined a church worship team without a shred of religious faith. I paid with my labor in religious activities to acquire top-tier lessons from the main drummer, who was a veteran professor of music.
I literally lived for the drums after that. I spent every weekend night in the club room and used my engineering temperament to write a systematized curriculum for our drum line. I fell into an obsession with being good, acting on a survival instinct to justify giving up a Seoul university.
Did I become the virtuoso I desired after four years? The conclusion was simple. My talent was merely "Gold Tier" at best. By the time I found the right path through trial and error, I no longer had the time.
I have no intention of complaining. What matters is not the result, but the pride that sustained me. In my anxious twenties, void of impressive grades or certainty about the future, the drum was my only weapon to face the world. It was a shield to cover my shabby reality. The thought that "I have the drums" sustained me when I had nothing else.
Now in my thirties, the drum has become my massive Legacy Code.
In the developer world, legacy code refers to outdated commands that fit neither current trends nor efficiency standards. Yet, if you delete or tamper with it, the entire system crashes. Because all the core logic of my life cross-referenced this drum code during my youth, my friendships, stress management, and even meeting my spouse were built by importing this specific library. If I were to comment out this code now, the program known as "me" would throw a runtime error and stop functioning.
I decided to reinterpret this old code from three perspectives as a rational developer.
1. An Abandonment of Refactoring While legacy code is usually a target for refactoring, I decided not to "fix" the code of my twenties. The reckless all-nighters and blind practice look like a mess of spaghetti code now, but I acknowledge this as a unique feature rather than a bug. Because that complex process existed, the current system exists. I leave it be and occasionally open it up to appreciate that messy passion.
2. Technical Debt for Growth I pulled time from the future and left grades behind, making it feel like a debt I had to repay. Just as a startup takes on debt to launch a service, I leveraged the debt of drums to launch the unstable service called my twenties. The energy I burned allowed me not to collapse. It was an essential investment for survival to build the stable server I operate today.
3. Kernel-Level Code On the surface, I am a cold developer typing on a keyboard. In the deepest part of my operating system, however, a four-bit pulse still flows in the kernel. While rational applications run on top, what loads first every time the system boots is this primitive rhythm. Because this rough and hot code lies at the base, I can retain human warmth even in a cold digital world.
I may have put down the sticks for a while, but my heart still beats at the speed of those days.
That is enough.