Time & Perspective Quote by Larry Wall

The charm here is the casual rebellion of a man best known for building languages admitting he still needs time to watch cartoons. Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, isn’t confessing a guilty pleasure so much as puncturing the whole idea that someone like him should need permission for leisure in the first place. The line lands because it’s structurally a programmer joke: a tiny if-statement about social rules ("allowed") followed by an unconditional execute ("I do it anyway"). Constraint acknowledged, constraint ignored. That’s Perl’s ethos in miniature.

The subtext is about legitimacy and gatekeeping: who gets to decide what counts as “serious” taste, and why the supposedly adult, credentialed world keeps demanding self-denial as proof of value. Anime stands in as shorthand for fandom, for subculture, for anything that’s been coded as childish, niche, or socially suspect. Wall’s uncertainty isn’t really uncertainty; it’s a wink at the pressure to perform adulthood correctly, especially in tech circles where productivity can become a moral identity.

Context matters: Wall’s public persona has always been playful, humanistic, and allergic to purity tests. He coined Perl’s “Three Virtues” (laziness, impatience, hubris) to mock-endorse traits that, in moderation, make good tools and clearer code. This anime aside operates in the same register: a soft defiance that insists creativity, taste, and joy don’t require a license. The punchline is freedom, delivered with the mildest possible shrug.