!date
Welcome to day 24 stalkers.¶
I don't watch them anymore but I used to consume Fortnite Twitch streams and youtube videos like if I was a blue whale and they were plankton.
I hope that analogy isn't lost on you but if it is, it just means I've wasted a fair amount of time watching Fortnite videos and streams.
Waste is a strong word. I'm going to keep it there for now though.
Anyway, there is a gamer that goes by the gamertag "Bizzle". All you have to know is that he is pretty good at the game.
There were a few of his videos where he wins a game so easily that at the end of the game he actually says:
This game is so easy¶
If that actually makes you cringe then get over yourself. The way he says it put a smile on my face because most of the big time streamers and competitors actually say things like "this game is trash" and other complain-like statements that then rub off on us players who aren't nearly as skilled so when the game is sitting on our chests and making us smell it's armpits (if you've ever had a big brother (I haven't I just know someone who does)) it can be easy to dive deep into a negative mindset really quick.
Especially since there is, at the very most, a 1% chance that you'll win the game. This only accounts for the other 99 players you're playing against.
That's why I love when Bizzle says "oh my god this game is so easy." He probably believes that winning the game is easy and for him it is. Or maybe the game is easy and we all suck at it and it's just a catch phrase to make people with odd confidence issues cringe.
Is it working?
What's this have to do with coding?
There's this pattern I follow with programming where I'll be coding along, doing just fine and then I approach an obstacle in my learning. I'll overcome this learning and then I'll be all like -
I'M THE GREATEST CODER EVER¶
Then I'll approach another obstacle or challenge and overcome it and say -
THAT WAS TOUGH BUT I'M STILL A CHAMPION OF CODE¶
Then I'll get to a really hard problem. Sometimes it's not even a hard problem (as I learned tonight). I'll get completely stumped. I'll work on it late into the night and try the next day. And for the next week this problem stumps me. Then I eventually quit going to that site or online course or platform or wherever the challenge was and say -
well if I've been coding for this long and I can't figure that out I must have done something wrong with my learning so I should go back to the basics because I'm obviously a total noob. (to complete strangers on the street) don't look at me I'm hideous.¶
Tonight I worked with some more Dataquest. Dataquest is actually one of these platforms I've dropped off the map because some coding challenge or problem seemed too hard. I never engaged in the community for help and I never pushed myself to complete craziness trying to solve some problems.
HOWEVER¶
Tonight, I did. First, I thought I found an error and actually posted a question in the community forum, something I'm terrified to do because of StackOverflow and the frail sensibilities as I've stated above. Well I found the answer to my own question (which usually happens to me. I'll finally get the cojones to pose a seemingly obvious question and find the answer right after - I've grown a little and have realized this and the time between me deciding to ask and asking is shortening because I'm really just greedy for the answer no matter how dumb it makes me look).
Then I totally answered someone else's question! It was something super obvious to me but definitely not obvious to this person but I didn't answer their question this way and I wrote a super-awesome-hopefully-easily-understandable answer. It felt really good and I've never gotten to actually help someone before with coding. I feel a little giddy from it.
THEN¶
I really really wanted to write this blog post. Not this exact one but I wanted to vomit some words onto a web page today and I was so nearly close to finishing the missions I was working on at Dataquest. There were 14 stages and I was so nearly close to the finish. My brain was telling me to go to sleep and things were getting hard to look at and the smart part of my brain just wanted to wander into the kitchen and slop peanut butter on ritz crackers and let loose.
like. Really let loose.
But I focused up. I even said to myself "I'm probably making this harder than it is"
And then beautifully simple correctly syntax-ed code danced from my fingertips. I had tried so many different things before that moment and was so ready to give up and I didn't. I kept staring at previous examples and I some how put the solution together. I had two more problems to do and I blazed through them. I didn't make one error after that.
So this one is for all the gatekeepers out there. Or even your gatekeeper's stalker. Even if you've made them up in your head saying shit like "People can't do this" or "People will blah blah blah if I do that"
Below is real time code from my challenges earlier.
Have a good one. Bust gates.
