Hello World
This is my first blog post on bearblog. In fact, it is my first blog post written and published anywhere. When you learn to code, you always write a program that prints out Hello World in the console. This post is like a hello world for me, but in the blogging space.
About me
I think it's only fair to start a blog by letting the audience know who's behind it. Right now, I'm a 23-year-old male living in southern Poland. I have an engineering degree in CS, and I'm currently working towards a master's at AGH University of Krakow.
My interests span IT, politics, investing, travelling, psychology, philosophy, and cooking. I like to dive deep into abstract concepts and moral dilemmas. I listen to a lot of podcasts and long discussions. Usually, when I talk with someone, I don't try to convince the other person of my view, but rather try to understand theirs and discover myself and my morals through that lens.
As you can probably tell by now, I have a lot of free time that I spend on overthinking, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it helps me greatly in getting to know myself. It allows me to explore my emotions and dissect my actions when I look at them retrospectively. On the other hand, it drains my energy and causes paralysis in certain aspects of life. I guess it's a gift that keeps on giving and keeps on taking. So it's net zero.
The need to share
People love to share their lives. It's an obvious fact. Just look at the success of social media and how literally everybody uses it nowadays. It allows us to satisfy the third and fourth layers of Maslow's hierarchy — the belonging and esteem needs. It enables us to put ourselves and our values out there and easily find people who are on the same page. It's awesome.
Of course, there are many dangers connected with the usage of those platforms, but that's not the subject for today. What I'm trying to convey is that everyone has a need to share something with the world. Some people need to share every minute of their lives, posting about what they ate for breakfast today. Others, like me, love to share art, concepts, and ideas. I'm not in a position to judge whether one is better than the other. I'm just highlighting that all those behaviours have the same root cause. The purpose of this blog is to satisfy my own personal need for sharing stuff I genuinely care about.
It's so 2010
For a long time, I felt that running a blog is a 2010 hobby for niche enthusiasts of birds, cooking, and herbal medicine. In the world of YouTube, TikTok, and other visual media, written text seemed so boring and lame in my eyes. "Who even reads blogs?" I thought.
Recently, I've changed my views on writing. Firstly, I discovered that I actually really love doing it. It feels meditative and lets me learn new English words by giving me a reason to look for them in the dictionary.
Secondly, I let go of the thought that if nobody reads my blog, it has less value or isn't worth running. Today I know it's for me. Maybe you found this post by complete accident. Maybe you even read this up to this point. If yes, then I guess it was also a little bit for you.
Thirdly, I've found some really great blogs from people in the software development space. I've fallen in love with their posts. I've enjoyed quite a few of them and decided I want to be like them. It's that simple.
So yeah... that's it. That's my first blog post, and hopefully not the last one. I'm really excited to share my thoughts, discoveries, and life lessons in the future. I have to end this post as the train I'm currently sitting in arrives at the station in my hometown. It's time for a spring break.