How Nothing’s As Impossible As I’ve Made It Out To Be — And Rejecting The Real World

The mental fallout of making my first app in 5 days, why I’m real irked about it, and the effects of words and assumptions on my sanity.

Technical Jargon Here

I recently created my first Android app. It only took five days to get the foundation done. And frankly, I’m quite unhappy about the fact that it did. This is what led up to the moment.

So about a month has passed since I restarted my litter-picking hobby after a 15-year hiatus. It’s nice. Being away from the screaming temptations of social media, and doing this simple task outdoors has been rejuvenating.

Then two weeks ago, a random idea came to me. I made this neighborhood cleaning activity somewhat fun by gamifying it and using the power of imagination to turn it into a make-believe adventure. At least in my head.

I wondered if it could be turned into an actual game.

It might’ve been a weird idea. Though doing basic internet research, I saw that some litter-picking apps integrated gamification through points systems and healthy competition.

But what if it could be a fully fleshed out game, that simply included these activities in the core gameplay loop?

Rather than solely revolving around cleanups (or any real-world activity), the game could also stand well on its own. It could have a story with a little depth to it. Perhaps some complex mystery and lore to spice things up.

Games like Pokemon GO motivated me to explore. So perhaps the same could deliver a cohesive narrative experience, while also getting a large number of people into areas to remove detritus and collect data.

After all, once the player gets someplace… well… they’re already there. It’s easier to choose to do something when you’re in the area anyway. Bonus points if virtual rewards are provided for doing so.

So that’s the idea I was thinking of. Again, maybe it’s weird, but random thoughts like this are reminiscent of my childhood. So it’s fun to think about regardless of the viability.

Get the idea out first, the person out there second, then hopefully whatever happens last will do so naturally.

It would only take one of those people to act to make a difference.

I thought I could give creating it a shot. Even if it didn’t have an effect, I’ll at least have taken the plunge into trying something new. And so at that moment, I decided to embark on a journey to do something I’d never attempted before.

Mobile App Development *dramatic noises*

Mobilizing With Mobile

Now that I had an idea to build off of, there was motivation to try learning about Android programming. It sounded so daunting. Android. Development. So, I’d never given it a shot.

I started with what everything starts with nowadays: consulting AI for answers I don’t have. I asked ChatGPT about the basics of mobile development, and it spits out a bunch of information on Kotlin.

It said that the language not only had similarities to Java but was actually interoperable with it. I had to Google that word, but I took it to mean my experience with Java would be transferrable.

I asked for a code sample. And the first thing I thought when I saw it was…

Wait, that’s it? I can totally use this.

It’s basically the same as [this thing I know].

I downloaded Android Studio. Did some more research. Then I installed a framework called Flutter, which uses a language called Dart. And finally, I made a Google Firebase account.

I’d never used any of these things.
Some I hadn’t even heard of before.

It took some time to get the environment set up. Then longer to play around with the demo code. But at the end of the day, I had successfully implemented a working login and authentication button.

Then I had to think about how to display a map. I tried Google Maps API, but it seemed expensive and difficult to work with. After searching through some other map tile providers, I settled on Mapbox’s API.

Keep in mind, I had no idea what a map tile was just moments prior.

I was thinking I’d have to implement the entire map from scratch.

I got the map display working. How would I then add markers and icons? I didn’t know, and I could not find any useful documentation for this package.

So after many, many hours of trying random stuff, searching online, and begging ChatGPT to just tell me how this worked, I was able to figure out the fields of the objects, and what to call to do what I wanted.

Finally, with most of the frontend infrastructure in place, all there was left to do was add backend calculations to handle stats and point systems, modify the user interface, and control the display of visuals.

And before the end of the week had even arrived, I had this to show.

It’s not polished in terms of aesthetics, nor feature complete. The code structure’s probably messy in places too. But by all definitions, I’d created a functional Android app.

The world’s divided into 2-kilometer blocks. Users can take a picture, and it either creates a new point of interest or updates an existing one nearby. And progress can be uploaded and synced.

Adding encounters and integrating a story shouldn’t be harder than anything that’s already done either. It would take time, of course, but it definitely could be done.

This was the moment I realized...

Me “making an app” really wasn’t impossible at all, as I’d been inclined to believe.

Maybe saying I was livid is an exaggeration, but I certainly wasn’t happy.
I was thinking… “you can’t be —- serious? This is all I had to do?”

In the fourteen months since graduation, I hadn’t been in a good state of mind. The search for meaning was a constant bombardment of negative feelings.

Many failures due to my own shortcomings. A lot of callous ghosting and treatment. And most impactful of all was everything I was reading online. All the stuff I was hearing.

Another opportunity for me to feel dehumanized and worthless seemed to be waiting around every corner. Anything positive felt like platitudes and false hope, which made each blow to my sanity even more painful.

I had little motivation left. Because I “just didn’t know anything and never would.” I didn’t know what I didn’t know even. And I’d never contribute anything of value.

Why am I even still alive?

And so now that I’ve finally conceived a new idea to work on… now that I’ve actually tried to build something with many technologies I “just didn’t know”… and have actually been able to do something successfully in such a short time…

Yeah, I’m pretty freakin’ miffed, to put it lightly.

I’d been driven past the point of insanity… wanting everyday to just cease existing…
…all by a bunch of rubbish I truly believed.

The Invalidation Of The Self Through Paralyzing Intimidation Imposed By Associations With Abstruse And Alienating Terminology

The associations I’ve developed with words have been largely detrimental to my peace of mind. Not even specific words, just words, and language in general.

In particular, I want to transport myself back to a time when I was right out of college. A time when I was beady-eyed, ready to get out there and contribute to the world.

I began reading all of these mile-long lists of requirements and technologies of every type imaginable. Some of which I knew. But a lot of which I’d never heard of nor encountered in my studies or projects.

New Grad Role

For this position, you will need experience with Python, Django, Ajax, Pandas, JQuery, Git, C#, C++, Core Java, Typescript, React Native, knowledge of Agile Scrum Waterfall methodologies. You must be a savvy coder and deep expert thinker using .NET. Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud services experience, Docker, Kubernetes, and Angular required.

Also 3 years of non-internship, industry experience.

For technologies I knew nothing about, my mind would fill in details on its own. And of course, the assumption it made was that they were convoluted, esoteric technologies that I’d never be able to grasp.

Even for tools I had experience with, like Python, my mind also auto-filled the association. I might’ve worked with it for almost 8 years throughout my school days, but this was the real world. So none of that wouldn’t count.

Obviously, by solving real problems, things would be way more complex. There was no way someone with a mere Bachelor’s degree and no real experience could ever comprehend even the basic concepts needed.

New grads didn’t know anything. According to what I read online. And I fully believed that. After all, I didn’t want to be that egotistical know-it-all who comes in and spouts their ideas. I wanted to be humble by conceding my lack of knowledge to the real world.

I didn’t know where to start catching up. It all sounded terrifyingly complex. I could’ve started a personal project using the tech, but that wouldn’t be real-world experience.

Nothing I did would be applicable to *real* problems in the workplace.
So what was the point of learning it all wrong?

The problem was that it was a requirement for roles. Yet I needed a role to get that real experience. Once again, I was clueless as to what I had to do. So I just kept doing all I thought I could.

To just be honest with what I knew — which was supposedly nothing.

Fast forward eight months. I’m beyond broken and dead inside. I set a new high score for depression; even worse than the horrible feelings I had 8 years prior.

(New record!)

At that time, I never would’ve guessed it was even possible to surpass.

Beyond frustrated, dehumanized, and most of all, without meaning. That’s all I could feel until I became desensitized to that as well. Then there was only existing in agonizing pain and emptiness.

A years’ worth of bottled up and suppressed emotions crushing my mind.

I continued to work on my next visual novel, making glacial, if any progress. Even then, it was just a silly game. Just the dabblings of a relative infant in the world of software. Plus, it was certain to be a financial net negative. It wouldn’t help my life’s prospects. Nor would any of my other smaller projects.

But then in February 2023, something significant happened. I saw a posting on LinkedIn from a non-profit organization, looking for a volunteer Python/Django software engineer for their machine learning image annotations pipeline.

I didn’t know anything about Django. I had only Googled to find out what it was. Again, I was under the notion that anything I learned outside of a corporate setting would be useless. And I wouldn’t know where to start anyway. So I hadn’t.

There were over 200 applicants on the page.
Even for a non-paying role, I thought there was no way it was happening.

Surely, there’d be someone infinitely more desirable than me.

But I applied. And lo and behold, I got a very quick response requesting an initial meeting.

I was completely baffled. It didn’t sound right. I even emailed back to make sure that they had the right idea about me. That they were aware I didn’t know Django, and only had base Python knowledge.

They reassured me that it was alright, and said many other people had started with only Python knowledge, then gotten acclimated to Django as time went on. And so the meeting was set up.

Panic mode. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

I was supposed to be rejected without a word like I had with the other 400+ applications. Now, I would be in front of an actual person in a virtual meeting, where my inexperience and incompetence would be exposed for sure.

How the hell did I get an interview? What would they ask? I didn’t know anything. I know I told them about my complete lack of Django knowledge, and they confirmed that it was okay…

But was it really? Did they misunderstand what I meant?!

I was a new grad 8 months out. I knew nothing.
*Nothing.*

The day of the meeting came. It started with introductions and small talk. My socially incompetent self couldn’t think of a better response than a meek “Oh”. And then the real interview began.

They asked about my previous experience. I anxiously recited that I’d worked on personal game projects and various other calculatory applications over the years.

Next, the interviewer began to talk about how I’d be added to the organization’s private Github repo and given access to their website and Slack and… wait.

What?

They were going to give me access to their codebase? As in… I was in?

It was at this moment that I realized this was hardly an interview. It was an onboarding call. And within 7 minutes of starting, final pleasantries were exchanged, and the meeting finished.

I sat there for a few seconds, staring blankly at my screen. It was completely surreal. And a surge of relief quickly flooded through me. I would finally be able to contribute something useful to the world.

The real world that seemed so untouchable.

After gaining access, I followed instructions to get the environment set up. It took a few days of troubleshooting. Some issues were on my end, others were because I hadn’t been granted the proper permissions.

I felt rather nervous asking questions in the Slack channel. It felt like I was just copy-pasting commands to run. Something about Cloud SQL and migrations and static files. Never encountered them before.

But eventually, I ran the runserver command again, and a local instance of the organization’s website loaded up, fully functional, and ready to be worked on.

And with that, I could begin.

My experience with HTML was basically non-existent, let alone with a fully functioning website. And as aforementioned, I had no idea what Django was either.

Nevertheless, I picked my first issue and got to work on implementing the feature. I tried to figure out where in the code I could add this image filter widget to the DOM (also, I didn’t know what a DOM was).

There was an optional weekly meeting, which I attended with other newcomers. The initiator of the entire project told us about pre-commit hooks, which would automatically format our code to a uniform standard.

Perhaps most surprising was that we were told we could utilize ChatGPT. That portions of the code had actually been written by it, some of which even he didn’t know the workings of.

Definitely didn’t need to tell me twice. I’d be utilizing that for sure.

So I continued to figure out what did what, where to add and modify stuff, etc. I consulted ChatGPT about concepts I didn’t know or remember; asked other people when that wasn’t sufficient.

And ten days later, I’d done it.

Throughout the process, I demonstrated my progress and got high-level feedback. Then I opened my first pull request. I got a request to fix formatting issues in my code review, but after that, it was approved.

I was then directed on how to deploy the change to the production site. And with that, my image filter widget was live for all the other volunteers to use. Soon after, I was pinged with a message of thanks in the Slack channel.

This was a surreal moment.

I’d finally contributed something.

From there, things only continued to pick up. The complexity of the code and problems increased, but it was nowhere near impossible. Soon I was delving into the Django portions. Would I be able to understand it?

By the third month, I was adding whole new pages for functionality. Creating entirely new views to pass data to the templates. Oh also, I knew what a View and a template was now. Somewhat.

I was utilizing AJAX calls and JQuery selectors, much of which I hadn’t known anything about just moments before using them. And I was continuing to get positive, constructive feedback, as well as pointers when needed.

None of this was completely incomprehensible to me.
It wasn’t even close.

It wasn’t anything like the impossibly esoteric gibberish I had envisioned.

At the moment, I’ve made 20+ pull requests for features, bug fixes, and whatnot. Some days, I sat in front of my screen for twelve hours and got whole pages up and functioning before the day’s end.

And recall that this is all volunteerism. I worked that long of my own volition. That’s how much my motivation had returned. I finally felt that I had a purpose again.

Perhaps what was most validating was that the ideas I presented were actually being agreed upon. I suggested an alternative method of displaying some information and created a mockup in Photoshop.

And it got approval.

I was in one of the meetings, and another volunteer, who had a senior role, said that the very same feature I’d implemented had been very useful in troubleshooting.

A thing I did. Useful…
Needless to say, that was a confidence boost.

Granted, I didn’t come up with the idea, I just took on the issue and implemented the solution to it. But surely, that meant it was working well and as intended? I mean, it passed the code review by someone much more experienced than me. So it must have.

Now, I could probably check off another 6 or 7 technologies in the mile-long list of “things I don’t know”. Hell, I could’ve done so by the second month. And once again, now that I’ve actually done it, I just think…

That’s freakin’ it?

Using JQuery for the first time, all I really did was use $(‘#identifier’); instead of document.getElement(‘identifier’);. Or I initialized a fancier table with $(‘tableId’).DataTable();.

Obviously, there was more nuance to it than that. But honestly, it doesn’t even feel like it. I could now technically say that I have “experience making frontend features with JQuery.”

Yet it feels like all I had to learn was that I could put an element ID in parenthesis with a dollar sign for syntax.

Am I an expert in it? No. Do I even know what there is to know? Definitely not. But once again, I’d done something. And it was nothing close to the impossible task I’d envisioned with my mind’s assumptions.

The same goes for every single other technology I learned to use doing this. More often than not, it was a matter of a quick Google search. Literal seconds to go from zero knowledge to knowing what I needed to know to solve an actual problem.

Sure, maybe software isn’t just about writing code. But I hadn’t just haphazardly typed symbols at random. I used them to formulate the logic I thought of to solve the problem.

But even that makes it sound more daunting than it was. “Thinking logically.” Almost all of my logic only utilizes if statements, for loops, and accessing/writing fields in object models. Not even any recursion.

This was more than enough to implement many features on the site.

I’m seeing how simple many applications are now. Just moving data, doing basic calculations on it, and neatly showing the results can go a long way. Furthermore, I never needed to reinvent the wheel. Nor should I have.

The mental imagery I had of these tools was an impossibly convoluted one. But the reality of the situation was ridiculously simple compared to that perception. And that makes sense.

If someone could study 4+ years in their field and still be incapable of even learning to use a tool, it probably wouldn’t be a very good tool.

In practice, it was mainly about using control flow to access fields and defining functions with basic logic. But because of everything I’d been hearing about the real world, I was under the notion that I’d have to manipulate individual bits and “hack my way around,” whatever that even meant, to be a real software engineer.

And the thing is, I likely could’ve even done that. I already learned about bitwise operations. But my mind’s assumptions transformed the task into something beyond even that. Something way beyond one’s realm of understanding that couldn’t even be conceptualized.

At least for a mind like mine. The infantile, barely post-college brain.

Tired Of Being And Doing Things

As I touched on in that inordinately long section, learning to utilize technologies like JQuery, GCloud services, and Django did not take some forbidden knowledge for me to grasp.

What I learned from my degree and projects was more than sufficient to get started at least. The notions I’d developed from everything I’d heard made it seem impossible. But it wasn’t.

The names of these tools weren’t the only words that garnered a sense of dread. Take the very word, technologies, for example. I only started using it because I saw it used and can’t think of a better word to use.

But doing so myself makes me grimace a bit.

Tech. Tech this. Tech that. Technology.

The imagery I derive from the word is a bunch of rocket science. Flashing lights and highly convoluted algorithms. Of course, none of the highly convoluted algorithms I actually know though. Only ones which I’d have zero possibility of understanding; those which I couldn’t even conceptualize.

Yet I never feel like I’m working with *tech*. When I make an application, I don’t think I’m making *tech*. I guess that’s *tech*-nically what it is, but to me, the term makes it sound like more than it is.

When I write some lines of Python, I don’t feel like I’m working with *technologies* either. I’m arranging keywords in a way so that the computer does what I want it to do.

Or how about this word? Learning. A constant learner and passionate about one’s craft.

The image that’s conjured for me is sticking one’s head into a 700-page book of technical mumbo-jumbo & documentation, and constantly having to act like it’s the greatest thing you’ve ever heard in your life.

Otherwise, you’re just not passionate. You’re not learning.

“what, this framework has support for cross-platform integrations with APIs… AND type-safety? OH MY GOD-“

But as aforementioned, I typically *learn* by doing a quick search or asking a question. I don’t feel like I actively try to *learn*, even if that’s what I am technically doing. I ask for an answer or Google some information I need, and try it out. And I apply it to an actual problem I care about; I usually don’t learn for the sake of gaining knowledge in a vacuum.

These relatively simple actions are how I’ve “learned.” After doing so, I don’t need to search for that information, make that same mistake, or use that less effective practice again. It’s one and done once it’s done. And that’s it.

When writing articles on Medium, one of the things I *learned* was how to make a better title. And one tip I read was to use words like “what,” “how,”
“why,” etc. So I tried it, liked the results, and started doing it from that point on.

And hence, I “learned.”

But all I did was add a single word.

It wasn’t a conscious struggle to *learn* to do that.
Neither are the dozens of other rules I “follow” when writing.

A lot of what I’ve learned is actually from failure. By trying things and having them not work out, I figured out what not to do as well.

Perhaps more importantly, I had a better understanding of why things didn’t work out.

But the word *learn* never invokes that imagery for me. It’s all about a quest for more knowledge. Reading, studying, and listening to the people who are actually *experienced* and *smart*. And don’t you dare to get a single thing wrong, because there is no room for failure.

In regards to *passion*, I’ve actually had moments where I figured I could do something with a certain language or package, and it made me go, “Oh, that is neat…” Feeling slightly giddy like the absolute nerd I was.

I can technically say I was passionate then. But again, it never felt like I was actively trying to *be passionate* about *tech*. I just felt things when I did. And even then, it was more about what I could do with the tool than the *technology* itself.

Hell, even the word “try” invokes this aversive feeling within me.

I’m *trying* to solve this problem. Except I don’t feel like I am. I never feel like I actively *try*. I just do something, and trying is the result of that. It feels so overdramatized when I think of describing my *efforts* like that.

Perhaps I’m just too infatuated with the semantics of it all, but I do have to beg the question of where (and why) these starkly negative associations with terms such as these developed in the first place.

How had even the most basic of nouns and actions been transformed into some insurmountable, laborious upward battle? And one that I’d certainly be incapable of, for that matter.

To utter these words would mean to lie of my own true experiences, I thought.
Nothing I’d done was worthy of any of that, I heard.

And so as I continued to hear about how I needed to be a passionate, lifelong learner, a savvy hacky coder, and all that, it felt impossible for me. All in spite of the fact that I’d already been doing most of it.

But I’d never be able to live up to *reality* of course. There was nothing waiting outside of the lie I’d been telling myself. That I actually knew anything. I would never amount to anything.

And you know what? I don’t want to.

I mentioned my aversion to calling myself anything in a writing from months back. Or I guess the proper term to describe the phenomenon would be “labeling” myself.

“Despite being okay with using those titles now, I feel nothing different. I don’t feel any more powerful. Nor do I feel my level of skill has changed through doing so. They don’t mean anything on their own.”

Why I’ll Never Be Happy With Myself | by Justin Yee | Medium

I am somewhat okay with calling myself a developer, writer, or whatnot. My Medium tag even uses that word. But that doesn’t mean I relish doing so. It’s simply the only way I can concisely describe something I do.

Furthermore, I somewhat understand (*understand*) the merit that comes with proclaiming those titles. By calling myself a *developer*, it exudes confidence and competence.

“Wow, he’s a *developer*.”

But as most reading this piece (*piece*) have likely inferred by now, the way I really feel is the complete opposite. Fraudulent, unknowledgeable, and alienated from the *real* engineers. To the point of questioning whether I even had permission to exist among them.

My aversion to using these terms came from not feeling worthy. Now, as I continue to try and move past those thoughts, it mainly comes from the lack of information these titles provide. In a sense, it’s still about not feeling worthy, just in a different way.

There is a large dissonance between what assumptions I’ve felt they imposed on me, and what I actually do as a *developer*.

When I see the title in regards to someone else, I don’t know their experience. And so my mind defaults to the assumptions I’ve developed. A hacky, savvy, coder who breathes software engineering. A genius, a ground-breaking, world-class disruptor.

However, when I see the title in regards to myself… well… I know what my experience as a “developer” is. And so the assumption is discarded, and I’m left with my comparatively inconsequential reality.

“This is all I do. It’s nothing compared to that.”

The subjectivity really pushes me away from titles. At what point am I a real *developer*? After my fifth application? Ten? How complex does it have to be to count? How many boxes do I have to check off?

I’ve been so tired of worrying about this. Which is why I *try* to use these terms as little as possible. I don’t want to *be* a developer or a *writer* or anything else. Nor do I want to *be developing* or *be writing* in the sense that I feel the terms imply.

It feels like in order to *be* a *doer*, I have to be everything and nothing at the same time. Everything’s expected of the title, but nothing can ever live up to it. I incur only the detrimental effects of both worlds. Which is why I simply don’t want to link myself with their associations.

But if I don’t align myself with those ideas, I presume the assumptions will go the other way. I’ve heard so much about having to show *confidence* to prove myself. Because no one respects a bumbling, hesitant coward who can’t even believe in himself.

So I label myself as a *developer* despite the fact, trying to convey my confidence through these surface-level representations of myself. I use the most grandiose phrasings possible to describe what I’ve done. And I put up this facade that I never have doubts or feelings. That I’m never lost or without direction, and I certainly don’t make mistakes.

But now I’ve become that egotistical college grad who thinks he knows anything. No one likes someone who doesn’t know their place. He doesn’t actually know anything. It’s all a lie.

I don’t know what the hell to do.

I’ve grown tired of… thinking. I never felt I had to analyze so much about what I am, what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, and why I’m doing it. Even *thinking* is framed as an active battle to me. So is *doing*. And so is *being*.

But I feel most of it just happens. Most of it just is. I don’t feel like much of this is a skill or a conscious effort I make. I don’t need to fire every single neuron manually to *devise* which word comes next in this sentence.

For instance, there’s the concept of dynamic programming (DP). The formal definition is something along the lines of this…

Dynamic programming is a computational technique used to efficiently solve problems by breaking them down into smaller overlapping subproblems. It is applicable to problems that exhibit optimal substructure and overlapping subproblems, which means the solution to a larger problem can be constructed from the solutions of its smaller subproblems, and these subproblems are encountered multiple times in the process.

The dynamic programming approach involves solving these subproblems only once and storing their solutions in a table or array. Then, when solving a larger problem, the precomputed solutions are retrieved instead of recalculating them, reducing redundant computations and significantly improving the overall efficiency.

-ChatGPT

When I hear about how I need to understand dynamic programming, for example, the scenario imagined is that I have to recite all these formal definitions and do a full-on theorem proof in my head. Quot erat demonstratum or whatever.

Otherwise, you don’t really understand the concepts.

“I am opting for a dynamic programming solution. Dynamic programming is a computational technique which *muffled speaking…* I chose this solution because of its optimal time complexi- *muffle muffle muffle…*, utilize an array data structure to integrate memoization and *echo echo echo echo…*”

But once again, I never feel like I have to actively try and *use dynamic programming*. It’s just the technical category of a *solution* I thought of intuitively given the context of a problem.

The very first computer science class I took was when I was a freshman in high school. One problem was to calculate the value of a number in the Fibonacci sequence.

I could use only recursion, but it wouldn’t be efficient. To find the 4th Fibonacci value, I needed to calculate the 3rd and 2nd. But the 3rd needs the 2nd and 1st, which meant you need to calculate the 2nd, 2nd, and 1st. So the 2nd would get calculated twice.

And so the solution to avoid this repeated calculation was to save the result of calculating the 2nd fib value (and really all the other calculations), and just access it whenever it was needed again.

That’s what we did. But I didn’t learn about DP as a concept until years later. I had “done dynamic programming” without even knowing what it was. At the time, it was simply the better solution to a problem. One that I naturally thought of, or at least understood when told.

So if literally every word feels like hyperbolization to me, then what exactly do I even say?

I don’t feel I “am”.
I don’t feel I “do”.
I don’t feel I “try”.

I mean, at this point, the only thing left in that sentence that doesn’t feel like an exaggeration is “I”.

And perhaps that’s exactly it.

I.

…

Okay, I guess I have to elaborate using the words I so fear. Even if it does end up sounding like more than I feel it is. So I hope I don’t come off as too self-aggrandizing.

My life. My experiences. That’s what it all is. The culmination of which is what dictates all my thoughts and actions today.

It’s all the things that make “I”.

The fact that I’m able to create at least what I believe are nicely laid out user interfaces for the non-profit’s website, is not because I checked a bunch of boxes one day. It’s because of what I’ve experienced.

And ironically enough, what I have experienced is the same experience that I’ve been made to feel wasn’t real at all. Mainly, the intermittent six years I spent making visual novels.

Through dozens, maybe even hundreds of incremental changes, I started to get a feel for visual placement. Perhaps this text wasn’t spaced enough from the edge of the screen. Maybe the size and color of these boxes didn’t guide my eyes to the right place.

It was just my dingy little project. But the palette I discerned then is the very same basis for my decisions in my current volunteer role. Now, I feel I can absolutely make a clean-looking interface.

I felt that the syntax and language of Ren’py were far too simple. I wasn’t doing real coding, so it wasn’t valuable experience. But after doing some “real” work with frameworks, it feels like the same difficulty.

All of that didn’t come out of nowhere either. I played video games and eventually discovered the genre. After trying a few, they sparked motivation for me to try and replicate something similar. Those feelings are one of many influences that led to everything else after.

In other smaller projects, I used Python libraries like Seaborn, Pandas, etc. I mindlessly fooled around with AWS and Google Cloud. And I made random applications just for the heck of it. Because I was having fun.

The solution of dividing the world into blocks in my Android app was one I had learned in a Software Development course. I used the same method to efficiently calculate hitbox collisions in a simple tank game. Now, that solution has come up again, only on a much larger scale.

So every time I’m reminded of the notion that people like me have no talent. When I hear that they simply don’t have any skills. That all of it is just worthless.

All I can think at this point is…

Yeah. I’d agree.

I don’t believe I have “talent.” And I definitely don’t think I have “skills.”

I have experiences.
Not experience. Experiences that I’ve lived through. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of facets of the short yet eventful life that I’ve lived continuously. All of which leads up to the “I” of today.

It sounds super corny. But every single moment, from the projects I’ve worked on, to random hobbies I’ve partaken in, to all the time I’ve supposedly wasted gaming and doing nothing of value. All of this has had a lasting effect on my thoughts and abilities today.

If those experiences were not real, then frankly, nothing is. Which honestly, would probably make sense, given how this world feels more like a simulation with each passing day.

Before, I didn’t have the experiences I have today to refute the thoughts of worthlessness imposed by these assumptions. But I certainly do now. And so I would like to challenge them. Vehemently so, in fact.

To The Real World

A lot of ideas in my previous reflections have continued to prove true for me. The year 2023 has really been a series of me realizing how much of the hogwash I’ve heard throughout my life has weighed me down.

Some of the things I took away from school; some of the mantras that were preached endlessly online. Many ideas I forced myself to adhere to, suppressing my discomfort and reservations for fear of stepping out of line.

I think I can now add the concept of the “real world” to that list as well.

Rejecting this notion is not a method of proclaiming myself as “smart,” “capable,” or whatever else. Because as aforementioned, I don’t believe so. I don’t believe those words mean anything. Nor do they do anything for me.

This isn’t a “see I told you” moment, but more a moment of having had enough. Not in the sense of snapping and going berzerk, but just being exhausted and through with this utterly detrimental fallacy.

Through this assertion, I decide to believe in my instincts. My own experiences. My thoughts, and my ideas, with the flaws and strengths of each alike.

So is it possible for me to do anything with my life?
Can I make progress in my dreams and endeavors, whatever that even means?

I don’t know.

I don’t know whether it’s possible.

But I refuse to believe it‘s *impossible.*
In fact, I know it’s not.

I was afraid of living in delusion. Being way in over my head. And so I cast away all the bits and pieces that made up “me” in these past 22 — almost 23 years now (crazy to think about).

The lessons I learned from every one of my experiences. Even the seemingly inconsequential. The knowledge I gained through doing so. The emotions I felt. And the reasons why I started it all in the first place.

Computer science was a focal point of this reflection. Being the center point of my work and hobbies. And the source of many of my fears and insecurities.

Why did I do it then? And why do I do it now?

When I signed up for that first computer science class nearly 9 years ago, I was excited. Here we had these devices that you could read a book on, watch movies, and calculate complex problems; hell, you could even create an entire world inside them.

There was an infinite realm of creativity and problem-solving waiting to be explored. With computers, it seemed like I’d be able to do anything I wanted. Anything.

The excitement I felt about the smallest of applications. Being able to make everything work. Even compiling a simple calculator program felt great. I wondered what else I could do in the future.

Technology was my quintessential vision of hope and progress toward the future.

How did that transform into hopelessness with no way forward?

The inadequacy I’d internalized from all I’d heard in these past years had pushed me beyond insanity. Into a secondary, stronger wave of depression that to this day, I’m still feeling the tail end of.

It had gotten to a point where I was just screaming internally and envisioning thoughts of self-harm. I’m aware of the associations that come with that term, so let me leave no room for assumptions.

I was having recurring visions where I’d be stabbing myself multiple times in the chest, feverously, with knives from the kitchen. Like that one part in The Last Of Us where the deuteragonist stabs the living hell out of that one guy. (spoilers for a 10-year-old game, I guess)

I felt these bursts of negative energy within me that made me worry I’d actually do it. Just the urge to hit something or slam my head into the wall. The latter which I actually did once or twice.

I’ve been through multiple cycles of this, so I’ve somewhat inferred why this happens to me. I understand that these thoughts (and conveying them through something like a blog post, I guess) are more cries for help.

It was to show how much internal torment I was feeling from this stuck state; the feeling that everything I’d done and been through was worthless and that I had screwed up my entire life. Every failure, negative experience, and remark I heard about “new grads” fed into that thought.

I can say that this was way worse than my last depressive wave, despite feeling “less.” Back in high school, I had thoughts of not wanting to exist anymore. But I think I subconsciously understood that I didn’t actually want that. I wanted to escape the terrible feelings I had about my circumstances.

I wanted to be saved, despite how much I made it impossible for myself.

But never before this second wave have I had to question whether I’d actually try something or not.

My mind generated these thoughts in a last-ditch hope to show how these viciously relentless pressures were killing me inside. All in hopes that someone could do something… anything about it. To provide an iota of comfort, even if in reality, no one but I would be able to change anything.

But because I felt I was at a total impasse, there was seemingly no path forward. And so that last hope faded.

Things have gotten better in the months since those feelings peaked. But as I’ve said, I’m still in the tail end. I had that same vicious thought a few weeks ago. And that same surge of frustrated energy seeking nothing but violent self-destruction.

If that is what the “real world” demands of me, well… I’ll have to apologize for failing it.

I can no longer oblige.

This would usually be the point where the author proclaims some grand statement.

After raising a middle finger to the ideas which had kept them down so, they loudly shout to the world that they are worthy, that they’re going to be [some amazing thing], and that nobody is going to tell them otherwise.

But as I’ve probably said countless times by now, I'm averse to labeling what I am. Or what I’ll be. And what I’ll do. None of those words will change anything. And I can’t say what’ll happen in the future anyway.

Will I continue to *develop* my Android app and publish it to see if it works out? I don’t know. Will I pick back up that visual novel project I’ve mentioned endlessly, but haven’t worked on in months? No clue. I said August would be when I’d start working on it again. I suppose I’ll see whether I stick to my word.

I’ve been doing voluntary work for the non-profit for nearly 6 months now. It’s a registered non-profit, and it apparently has enough renown for a family member to have heard about it in one of their courses. I worked with a bunch of new *technologies* doing so. I *learned* a lot, but also used much of what I already knew.

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say working there has saved me from the depths of despair I was in. Being around people who are helpful and supportive, even if only virtually, helped to combat the notions I’ve had. I’m genuinely grateful.

I’m certainly inclined to believe that experience is very real. Yet I still worry about whether I can proclaim it as such. And even if I can, I then fret over whether it’s real enough. There’s just no escape.

I said that I’d be rejecting the real world. But there’s still a harrowing feeling of doubt. That maybe these thousands of words I’ve written are a bunch of nonsense from a guy who never had any real struggles.

But I have to trust my instincts.
As difficult as is it to.

Maybe this goes to show how deeply ingrained within me this is. When I question whether I’m irrational for wanting to believe that despite the countless privileges I’ve been afforded, the last 22–23 years of my life haven’t been “worthless.”

I want to believe that my many shortcomings and failures don’t mean I’m incapable of ever doing anything. And that I shouldn’t even bother trying. I want to believe I will have a chance to overcome these hurdles.

I want to believe it is not impossible for me.
Or anyone else, for that matter.

At least to the point of not envisioning thoughts of murdering oneself every few weeks. I can’t have hope for the future like that. That’s not a world I want to live in. And I guess in that extremely dark vision, I don’t.

So I’ll “do” what I always should’ve been “doing,” and in a sense, have largely been “doing” already.

That is, whatever feels natural, and whatever feels right. Whenever it feels natural, and whenever it feels right.

As long as I continue to do that, I will always be moving somewhere at a decent pace.

And what results from that may be worth more than I give myself credit for.

At this moment, what feels right to me is to set this notion aside once and for all. With it, all of the impositions and torment that came with it. And I feel the right time to do it is now. Right at this very moment.

I can go on for another 30 minutes about my feelings these past few years. I’m sure there are plenty of anecdotes that I haven’t put into writing. But if I try and do everything at once, I’ll never get the first step done.

So I’ll end it all here with this.

If the notion of the real world only serves to demoralize… to destroy any hopes and desires to build a better future… if the real world seeks only to demean… and reduce one’s complexities down to labels and checkboxes…

…If the real world dictates that I must discard the importance of every struggle, setback, tragedy, accomplishment, and feeling I’ve had in all my years of living… that I must sacrifice the self and throw the things I once loved behind locked gates… killing myself and all that makes me in the process…

If the real world proclaims all that was nothing… yet the supposed path forward leaves no hope for me as well…

Then I can now see this “real world” is the biggest delusion of all.