A worthwhile distraction
Today, I was remembering why I started this blog and why of all the blogging platforms, I settled with Bear.
Let me tell you a story of a worthwhile distraction.
I found this place by accident. I was learning how to program with Ruby and eventually Ruby on Rails. I opened Michael Hartl’s book and read the foreword made by Derek Sivers.
Eventually, I found his blog. Some dude who first learned PHP, switched to Ruby, switched back to PHP, and then returned to learning Ruby for the rest of his personal projects (at least for a while).
I could relate with the language switching. It's a relief to know that I'm not alone on this one. There are other novice programmers who also switched once they reached some point of difficulty in their learnings.
To give him credit, he has a level of grit I do not have (yet).
So I couldn’t relate on the part where he made a profitable company just by rolling up his sleeves and just went to work as he says on one of his books.
But the encounter has given me a new lens in the world of tech. Which I’m glad to say that I’ve applied it in my work at my retail job.
I used programming (with the help of AI) to make some scripts and SPAs that I use at work. It’s made my job enjoyable when brainstorming with patients. It has helped me communicate better. Which had been so helpful when it came to troubleshooting eye concerns. Because of it, I found satisfaction when we are able to de-escalate situations for our Karen customers.
That itself has its own reward. For that I am most thankful for.
Now, how did I get here to Bear?
If you linger long enough on Derek’s blog, you’ll find his now page, which encourages you to make one as well.
But with what? A personal website.
I had a domain name that was connected to GitHub pages for my blog using Jekyll. It has been lying around, waiting to be used while I had spent the past few months—years!—trying to figure out how to add pages the Minima theme.
And then I saw Bear, a minimalstic website. Derek mentions this as one of his instructions on how to make a now page.
I gave it a shot. And I’m glad I did.
I’ve been hanging around on the platform for almost a year now and I've met wonderful community of people from different walks of life. Especially on the Discover page and a few Discord servers filled with other Bear bloggers.
I don’t see any reason for me to stop coming back.
My coming here has been a distraction. But it wasn’t just any distraction. I’ve met a wonderful community of diversity through emails, mentions, and Discord servers.
I still like programming. And I’ll be honest when I say that it’s been a struggle to do it alongside with my job (and life, in general) for it could take a lot of your time.
But I’m still here. Continuing the good work. Doing my best to be of service to others offline.
It’s a struggle but even with all the distractions in the world.
It has all been worthwhile.