Hi World!!

It was hard to get here. I mean... it was hard for me.

The beginnings of this blog were honestly comical. The only way I could ever recover the time I wasted is probably in a second life, by cloning my repo lmao.

The Problem#

A few days ago I was browsing the web and, completely by accident, stumbled upon kube.io. I don't even remember how it happened, but I do remember being struck by how simple it was.

That perfect kind of simplicity that I've apparently been searching for for years (without even knowing I was looking for it).

Feeling inspired, I thought:

I need a topic for a blog.

A quick moment later, I was already trying to talk myself out of it. I was supposed to be learning C++. I was supposed to touch nothing except .cpp files. No postponing the actual learning again.

Maybe a minute passed. Then my brain lit up like gold and produced one very reasonable vision:

If I make a blog about learning C++, I can also use it as a side quest to build something nice around it.

I did not argue with myself for even a second. Immediately, loud and clear, the decision was made:

the simplest template in the world

lmao.

I went through a bunch of templates. Some Astro, some Next.js. I had a huge dilemma, because Next.js gives you a lot of freedom, but Astro had this one beautiful, simple, modern, almost holy theme: AstroPaper.

I fell in love with it.

I could already see exactly how I would use it. Unfortunately, it was written in .astro.

Oh no, no, no.

Not for my brain. Every tiny limitation in Astro hit me like a pollen allergy and those little itchy balls under your eyelids. If you know, you know...

Very reasonable, even though I would probably never even get close to using the actual advantages of Next.js.

Anyway. Plan B it was.

I searched and searched, hoping someone else had once been pushed into the same corner and had rewritten the whole AstroPaper theme in Next.js.

Oh, how wrong I was. Nothing. Empty. NULL.

So only plan C remained. You can probably guess what it was. At first, my consciousness still tried to stop plan C from removing me from normal life for a few days. I even managed to open learncpp.com, but then something happened...

I don't know how. Maybe some cursed redirect fired or what, maybe the universe misclicked for me, but somehow I ended up reading a React course for five hours.

wtf?

I am still not sure how it happened. All I remember is that first there was a black, empty template. I added a header and a tiny first post, less than 30 words. I was happy with it for maybe 15 minutes. Then I noticed one tiny thing. The text looked too dark. Then too light. Then too big. And then I kept going in circles. Literally in circles.

But that was not even the worst part. I spent the next few hours designing a logo which, spoiler, is now in the trash. It actually looked pretty nice. I was happy with it. The problem was that I also had an idea for an animation, and the amount of time I would have had to pour into it was so absurd that I might as well have become a full-time animator. Eventually, I managed to let the blog go.

A temporary victory.

The next day I came back to it as if I had not wasted 10 hours on absolutely nothing the day before. I had slept, so maybe that is why plan C did not seem so terrifying anymore.

What a Ride#

Plan C started with Tailwind Next.js Starter Blog. Solid starter. The plan was clear: AstroPaper should work on Next.js the same way it works on Astro.

So I started modifying everything. Then I modified everything around the modifications. I kept spinning, fixing, changing, overthinking, and somehow this long way around led to NextPaper.

Agile name, I know.

What Now?#

The blog exists now.

And I am trying very, very hard not to keep designing it.

I already have a long todo list. What to change, where, how, why, in what order. Everything beautifully planned out. But for now, we are staying with what exists.

deep breath

Simple. Fast. Good enough.

I am tired, and the most important thing is that I can finally use this blog for the thing it was created for.

right?

I want this place to be honest.

I want myself to be honest here.

I have really missed that kind of honesty in my life, and I hope I can pour some of it into this place, by just learning.

So yeah: screw AI, and welcome to whoever is reading this.

add guestbook later... noted

Paradoxically, out of all these preparations for preparing to learn, I somehow found something useful.

And most importantly, a warning to myself.

Some conclusion, I guess#

Damn. Preparing to study can feel dangerously close to studying.

You (I) create a folder, pick a theme, organize your (my) notes, then polish the notes, take care of the aesthetics, build a blog.

lmao.

Everything except actually learning. And it just keeps going, until you (I) catch yourself (myself) realizing that you (I) have wasted three entire evenings preparing to start learning.

That feeling of productivity is the most dangerous part, because it is not doomscrolling. It does not feel useless. It has features. It works. It might even have a README. So it becomes very easy to fool yourself (myself).

You are preparing.

I am preparing.

The setup is finished. Probably. I hope.

Now I guess I should write some .cpp.

Thank you for reading! ❤︎

This is my first post, and the first mistake I am documenting.