{Things: [Learning, Making], Feeling: [Satisfied, Happy]}
Over the past few months I've been digging into programming and development - specifically the technologies and codebases I think will help me create on the web and provide me with a half decent foundation for development moving forward.
My learning is split across days, weeks, and months, but tonight things are starting to come together. Tonight I sat down for six hours and just ate through code lessons. Mostly CodeSchool, RubyGuides, and Vagrant. It's not my job, I have hundreds of distractions that are easy to open, and it's Friday night. No shortage of parties, movies, TV, and drinking to do. What keeps me coming back to code?
There is nothing quite like working hard on a new skill, and building something with it. Creating something that runs, breathes, and performs where earlier in the day was only grey matter, and knowing that with each lesson it's sinking in, and you've begun to think differently and understand at a deeper level.
It is a huge rush - satisfying in a very deep way - to be able to do that. The most relaxed I've been lately is when I crack open a good Spotify playlist and sit down for a few hours to learn code, stand up servers, build things, and know that your ideas can now be made reality. Still a frail, rickety programmatic reality in my case, but I'll get there. (feel free to debug my post title)
Education on the web has perhaps only just started to really engage its users but the amount of information and training available combined with new and engaging formats being developed (see CodeSchool, Codecademy, TreeHouse, Bloc, and Coursera) provides us all with an unprecedented opportunity (and I would argue, an imperative) to grow ourselves and be able to make our ideas.
It's exciting as hell, and I can't wait to see what we create.