The One With My Fear Of Coding

No it wasn't my idea to write this. The next two paragraphs weren't even written for this. I was writing the about section for this website of mine. Halfway through, I realised that if I continue writing this, my about page will turn into a 500 line "Chirag's childhood" real quick. So rather a post.

My earliest engagement with programming was in class 7 because of BASIC. Ngl, I hated it. I sucked at it and thought computers ain't my cup of tea.

Fast forward, class 9. I was introduced to JAVA. It was frightening at start. But then during my summer vacations while randomly scrolling through play store, I got an app, Sololearn. I can say, that app made me what I am now (atleast most of it). More because of its community than its learning modules. More from its people and their cool creations than its eXPerience points. After that, my fear diminished. Instead I started loving the process. I remember writing a code to multiply two matrices and that gave me more enjoyment than anything at that time. Yes, at this point I no more fear coding. The title of the post has expired. I will continue though.

Everything went on well and good till boards. After that I went on an unknown rather journey termed "JEE". I loved the new teachers. The first time in my life, I enjoyed going to school. I made friends. In that restricted place, a small world was created. Regarding coding, it stopped. Completely. Phones and Laptops weren't allowed. Neither taking CS as optional. Yeah you can count this as a 2 year complete break from coding.

Again fast forward 2020. Reached the goal. Fortunately CS. With this, also came diminished enthusiasm in everything. I tried to learn python then C (both half broken). But by then, coding wasn't the only thing I loved. Interest for photography had already started in me by then.

With the start of college, I did code although in a very diminished tone. Ofcourse I got to know about CP. Tried hands there. Tried to go back to a competitive world AGAIN. Slowly, it dawned upon me, I don't enjoy this. The coding yes. The competition no. Well it's very bad considering the whole world is very competitive right now. But then, can you really fit in a world if you try to fit by doing something you don't like ? I don't think I can. For the second time, I feared coding. In a weaker tone than before, but I did.

This time, no miracle was gonna come. It happened slow. I started exploring different languages. Different projects (not many). Creating these small beautiful things made me happy again. I got my enthusiasm back. This is what gave me tranquility in coding.

I also realised that DSA is much more important than I had initially thought of. And learning them will give me the potential to make better and more functional useful stuff.

Now I don't fear coding. And I hope I am able to maintain this. I enjoy creating useful stuff and I hope I'll be able to continue doing that.

Signing off,
Chirag