Ego, programming, and NG+

One of the game series that I used to play back when I wasn't a grumpy old man was Dark Souls.

Man, were the games punishing, but they were great.

Dark Souls is notoriously difficult. There is no difficulty level (it's just hard, lol), no waypoints, you're just wandering around trying to make sense of the world and fighting enemies along the way.

But as you get further and further into the game, as you might expect, it gets easier. You begin to learn the mechanics of the game, how to use i-frames (invincibility frames) when dodging, flask usage, etc. You start to learn boss patterns. And one day you beat the game.

But then... guess what? You can start all over again. This time you can play "New Game Plus" (NG+) to make it even more difficult for yourself.

I never tried it.

But this kind of pattern of learning, playing, and "getting good" at Dark Souls reminded me of my own journey into programming and where I am now.

And I want to talk a little bit about this - the idea of how learning something new can seem daunting when you're trying to keep up impressions for the sake of your professional career (among other things).

The first bonfire

Learning to program initially was actually very difficult for me.

I started about four or five years ago with Python, and still remember the day that loops finally "clicked" for me (yes, something that simple).

Then I moved into modern web development, then into technical writing (which is most of my day job now), and now a bit of both, while hopefully learning more about some new domains (namely data, ML, HPC, and system administration/devops).

I remember back then just sharing what was I was learning online, and even managing to land my first job through it. I had no ego. I knew I was a beginner, and I had no qualms about saying it. It probably actually helped me get my foot in the door.

But now going back and learning new things again, one of the things that's different (and I'm struggling with) is ego.

I feel like I've built up all this knowledge in the crazy world of NodeJS, meta-frameworks, frontend web development, and more, and that somehow by going down this route to explore something new I'm starting NG+.

And this feeling is hard for me. I'm not expert by any means, but I've come pretty far - from someone who had no experience working in the tech industry, to a self-taught developer and technical writer, to building production web applications, data scraping services, and more.

And ironically, the thing stopping me is knowledge that I already have.

What I struggle with isn't necessarily the learning.

I've done it all before, right? Of course I can learn new things. I believe in myself on that front.

It's perception. I'm aware that most people don't even care who I am or what I do, but I still feel like there are eyes on me. Like I need to be some kind of authority, even though I don't.

So this is a note to myself to drop the fricking ego. To just learn. To ask stupid questions, and do stupid things again. And to do it all without fear, just like when I started a new game initially.

I think I'm planning to start sharing notes on everything that I'm learning each week, here on my website. Hopefully it will allow me to share openely, while keeping my blog for more intentional and complete content.

So here's to that, and holding myself to it.

Thanks for reading.