Why I write

I've always wanted to start to write something out. Over the years, I have tried to learn web dev and tutorials always start with building a blog. Like many people, I thought the problem was that I didn't know how to make a blog. It's partly true. The problem isn't the ability of making a blog. Once I figured out what the real problemm is, I know I can make it work.

In 2022, I was quite active at a community Superhi. I love Superhi not because they are cool, but mostly I can always get responses from this community. As a first generation of Internet, I'm quite active online, so I joined lots of online communities. Some of them are deadly quiet but that's not the case in Superhi. It never lets me down. I started a channel called "Keep Learning", which I intended to promote a culture where people share their goals for the week, but never took off, unfortunately. Now, it paused a bit as people are busy with their work and in general posting something has been mental hustles for many.

For the Chinese New Year, I love the superhi community and sent a message about happy chinese new year in the group channel. Max Pete, the superhi community manager, kindly gave me Amazon gift card to celebrate Chinese New Year. To be honest, he was way too generous! For my last job, the company only rewards £20 for people who hit the sale meeting tagets. I took the gift extremely serious, and somehow I understood why scholoarship and gifting work. Because I don't want to let him down so that I was thining about how I could make a good use of the present.

Buying books never goes wrong. Recently, I've been trying to tidy up my room and disclutter stuff. I still find out the amount of books is suprising large. Yes, I just love books but over past 4 years in London, I purchased many books and none of them is quite finished. However, I discovered a truth that I don't need to finish a book, page to page. I can define the meaning of "finish" by asking questions. If there is no question I wanted to know, then books can go away and sleep in my shelf.(I'd put my list below this post.)

Share something samll every day -Austin Kleon

I didn't know how famous Charing Cross road was outside the world but I often visit Foyles' bookshop, arguably, the biggest bookshop in London. One of the books I always wanted to buy but put off is this one - "Show Your Work!" by Austin Kleon. In the book, the point of sharing work daily can accumulate a big work. We tend to focus on just days, rather than, years, months and weeks.

Sharing your work isn't telling everyone about the whole thing. Instead, you consciously share the most exciting little piece of process with others. Just like a small talk, you won't grab people to tell everything about a project including disasters and dramas. You tell a story with hights and lows.

I also convinced by the egghead.io that I should have a own space, my platform to tell everyone in the world about things I really care for.

The name #

One big part of me is the christianity. I became a christian and gave my life to Jesus when I was 18 in an underground church in China. Fair to say, without God, I wouldn't be who I am nowadays. Hence, I chose this domain name: kingdomdavid.com. I have creatively come up with lots of names but this one is my favourite. Because it's big. bigger than myself, my personal brand.

Over the years, people have been curious about why I chose David as my English name. As many people may use their Chinese name, sometimes I may tell a joke about how non-chinese people won't remember Chinese names, but the key reason is I used to read the bible every morning in univeristy. That was the best time I had in my life. I read Psalm and love how David from the bible wordshiped God and sing the joy to the LORD. Well, I was thinking about identity wise. Why wouldn't so many people develop certain things on their own? Sometimes, we failed to answer many questions but if we know what we really stand for, we will do it constantly.

Let's say the other day, a bootcamp mate asked what language he should learn. I wrote a reply to him.

That’s one perspective of motivation but it won’t possibly stay longer in my experience, unless you make a daily habit of writing code/learning programming language . Thinking about any language won’t make you software developer, but taking any form of action: writing code every single day does. Software engineer is an identity, a lifestyle rather than a job title, a name.

But the simplest one would be to enjoy the fun of writing clean code, challenging yourself to solve harder problems, making applications that is useful for others.

Java, JavaScript, Python, they are all different tools, but the purpose of learning any programming language should bear end goals in mind. In this way, they are the same. Interestingly, I can see patterns in JavaScript are highly similar to Python. That discovery excites me. Implementing some abstract logics we can’t see in our eyes excites me. Making ridiculous length of code into a clean code excites me. Solve problems smartly that bring values to firms excites me. I found out I don’t need to be a software developer to enjoy everything they do. To me, the way I enjoy writing code produces the byproduct: software engineer/data scientist, whatever

It all depends on what you want and your commitment.

I realised a fact that if you really want something, you gonna do it every day. It's not there is the best method/langeuage/or any other thing, but it's your action.

Tags #

Currently, I'm building my own business. I'd set up 30 minutes to share some progresses here. I love this 11ty blogging sytem. Flat files and use markdown. Probably, it'd be the best one I can find. I'd align the tag,start-up.

As for me, I came from a data science background and I won't aband skills I learned. So I'd post something casually using a tag data-science.

I've been always interesting in software engineering so I'd put software-dev to demonstrate what I've been learning as well.

One of principles I have is to always live in a better life but it won't be possible without understanding what life is. I put a tag for lifestyle.

For those who don't know, I actually graduated from a bachelor's degree in finance. I'd love to talk about topics associated with finance, economy and mostly about cryptocurrency. Hence, I like to show what I understand about crypto. I put a tag here as well crypto

Conclusion #

I saw one of people from bootcamp has been working quite hard to update github and had a personal blog, etc. In the professional world, it is quite obvious to see this behaviour. Some would try to calculate the zero-sum game where there may be a checklist for things you complete and you get a point. However, in my case, I just wanted a place, a home to gather my thoughts and believes. Like I said above, the identity is determined by what you do everyday.

Up to the point, I just realise the best thing to guarntee outcomes is to commit to the process. if something I'd like to do everyday until I die, I would do it.

Best,
David