Hello World

Published October 8, 2021

How Did We Get Here?

I’ve wanted to start a blog for quite a while but never pulled the trigger until now. I felt that writing a blog would be more of an egotistical exercise where I expected people to treasure every word that I wrote, and I definitely don’t need another outlet for my ego. It might still be that, but I hope that instead of increasing my own perception of my self-importance, this blog would be a channel for me and the readers to think deeply about topics that matter and possibly some that don’t. By constant writing and thinking, I can better my own abilities as a thinker and writer.

The above concerns about stroking my own ego also combined with my fear of the consequences of what I say. As the cost of speech increases, it becomes far easier to say nothing and becomes even more important to say something. I don’t believe I have all the answers, but I have a perspective that I don’t commonly see online. At least some of what I think could be valuable to other people who feel like me. Alas, even after realizing these things, I was too scared to put myself out there, so I did nothing until I tried something. I had an idea to create a blog that I wrote anonymously and that no one could trace back to me. That’s when I first drafted the static site generator that powers this blog, along with fleshing out the build process. Unfortunately, this approach of anonymous writing wasn’t for me, and I couldn’t stay motivated to write posts that I wasn’t even confident enough to put my name to them.

The creation of this blog represents a turning point in how I view myself and my ideas. If I genuinely believe that I have something to add to the conversation or a different perspective that could benefit someone, I must speak up. Worst case scenario: no one reads this, no one is helped, but at least a written record exists that will acquit or condemn me based on my beliefs.

“If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?”
- Hamilton: An American Musical

A Better Me

Many of the reasons I am writing this blog are more oriented to my own benefit than the reader. In writing this blog, I hope to:

• Become a better writer. I have never felt confident in my own writing, especially when communicating my own thoughts rather than summarizing a topic. I hope to grow in expressing my thoughts and developing my own prose that will better define my writing.
• Learn how to be a better developer. The best way to learn something thoroughly is to teach it to someone else, which is almost more true when it comes to development. Having a blog that I regularly update with projects or ideas adjacent to technology will surely force me to become more intimately familiar with the languages and technologies I use. Every problem must be paired with a solution, and I must intimately understand the how and the why.
• Appease my own conscience. A fun thought experiment that I think about somewhat regularly is this: We look back 100, 200 years ago and are amazed at the blind spots in morals and ethics that prior civilizations had. What will future societies look back at us in disbelief at our ignorance? I have a couple of ideas that I feel very strongly about that our entire culture has completely missed the mark, and I hate to be an idle bystander who will get lumped in. I don’t want to be left as part of the silent conscientious, knowing what is right and wrong but unable to act. This blog is not a complete solution to this problem, but I have something that I have done.

A Better You

A blog without an audience is pointless; so is a blog not written for the benefit of its readers. Therefore, this is how I hope you, the reader, will benefit from reading:

• Gain a different perspective on life and the world. You may not agree with everything I say; I haven’t met a single person that wouldn’t be uneasy about at least one of my ideas. But by engaging in perspectives that are different than your own, you can strengthen your own ideas and ways of thinking. With this comes a warning: do not ignore cognitive bias regarding your own thoughts and others. People too quickly decide that they are correct and then rationalize why the facts prove them true. You must flip this model to benefit in this way by considering the facts and arguments outside your own biases and then coming to a conclusion. This is how I strive to think, and if you engage with my writing in this way, you will hopefully reap the benefits.
• Learn about technology. I am not an expert, but I have a decent number of years devoted to learning the ins and outs of computers, programming languages, distributed systems, and the like. If you can use my writings as a stepping stone to your own understanding of the internal workings of computer systems, then I will have done my job correctly.

Don’t forget to consider my own faults when you read what I write, but be sure to consider the facts outside of the flawed person who is presenting them to you. Please don’t let me get in the way of the ideas I try to portray.

With all that said, let’s get started.

Thanks for reading.