Reboot

I learned to build stuff. On the way, I lost the ability to share it. I'm trying to get it back.

I started out as an impostor.

As a kid, I joined the MCPE forum. I built mods out of others' snippets. I shared them on YouTube. In about a year, I had 2.9K subs and 713K views.

We all shared a single laptop at home. So I made a JS IDE for my Nexus 7. It hit 20K downloads.

I still couldn't code. I avoided Rhino, a JS Engine, because it was complex. I built the IDE on a WebView and its console.

Enough copy-paste, and it started making sense. I had momentum and was having fun with projects.

I started writing about how I built things. I wrote about a real-time face recognition app. It was read by a few and ended up in a university course.

I never asked whether any of it was interesting. I made things and showed people, without overthinking.

When I got better, the trick stopped working. The more I knew, the harder I judged what I made.

Things I built went nowhere. Open source and SaaS projects never took off. Even if they did, I couldn't charge for it in Lebanon.

I felt like I had no way to win. I felt like I was screaming into the void. I felt like I was burning out.

So I went scorched earth. I deleted all my social profiles.

Eventually, I found a good job at Sticker Mule. I spent years unlearning how I work and communicate.

I tried to come back. I just never held my breath long enough.

Now, I have a new list of things to write about. And I finally have the patience to see this through.