My Journey To Becoming a Self Taught Programmer

There is nothing in this post about programming. Choosing that skill was just a tactical excuse for me to explore being able to learn 24/7. In this post I share with you how.

It has been hard for me to write this blog post.

I believe it is because I don't feel comfortable putting myself into any sort of label.

"Being a programmer" tells the world a picture about myself that makes me feel tied to that identity. Constrained. Limited.

I don't like that at all. I am a boundless spirit that is looking for itself.

Through my experience I've realized that the path towards that lies in the process of developing mastery in some craft.

Programming has been -for me- one of the core vehicles for doing just that. To become a good programmer, I had to develop meta-skills that I believe to be more important than any other particular skills.

I'm going to use this piece to explore both perspectives and do my best to shift from the notion of 'me' to the notion of 'you,' so that I can help you learn how to apply my insights to benefit your own life.

You can become anything you truly want. I taught myself how to code, and because of that, I’m now working with an amazing team to build a Farcaster client that aims to bring a new story to the way we interact with each other (and ourselves!) through the internet: /vibra.

You can use these insights to learn how to write, paint, do 3D modeling and rendering, trade cryptocurrencies and make good profits, or pursue anything else you actually want to do.

I believe that the world is more open than ever, and the opportunities for us to do fun things, that heighten our spirit, are more alive than ever!

But you've got to show up, face yourself, and do the work.

So, welcome dear reader, and now let's get into it!

First, you have to make the conscious decision that you are going to target your energy in a particular direction. Whatever it is, you've got to choose it.

And with this I mean, commit.

You have to commit to the practice.

It is only through repetition that you are going to discover what is your (and only your) unique relationship to the craft that you choose.

So choose it.

Ask yourself: What do I want to do?

And commit to start doing it, every day.

When I taught myself how to code, I discovered the Pomodoro technique. It is a simple but very effective technique, that forces you into a time container (which is one of the most powerful tools you will have on your toolkit).

You work on periods of 25 minutes, and then you rest for 5. Then you go back to another 25 minute sprint, and then you rest for 5.

In this moment of my journey I used to sit down in the attic of my room, and my mission was to do at least 2 of these, every single day.

Actual footage of the ceiling of the desk where I taught myself how to code.

I committed to do it, no matter what. Even if I didn't want to. Even if I felt tired. Even if I didn't know what to do.

Especially when I didn't know what to do.

"The biggest predictor of long term results is learning to do things when you don't feel like doing them"

So I sat down, every day, to actually do the work.

I started with a simple tutorial. There are plenty of those on the internet. Pick one. Don't spend weeks choosing which is the best tutorial for doing what you want to do.

That is an excuse, and you will be hiding behind it.

Actually, that is a pattern that you need to be aware of, and that will repeat over and over again.

We have a natural tendency to hide, and learning something new is hard.

We resist it. It makes us feel fear.

Because doing it forces you to face your shadows. It forces you to assume that you don't know something.

And there is a big part of you that wants to be accepted and loved by the world, and embracing that you don't know something has always been seen as a source of weakness.

But do you know one of the most important pieces of wisdom that humanity has ever produced?

"I only know that i don't know"

Once you realize that assuming that you don't know something is the most valuable state of mind that there is, the world transforms into a playground.

Full of opportunity. Full of wonder.

And you start relating to it through the perspective of a kid that just wants to play.

And play is the most effective vehicle for learning.

So you need to cross this threshold between "i don't want to do it because i don't know how to do it and i suck at it and i will fail" into the "fuck it, let's see what will come out of me today" as soon as possible.

And the only way of doing that is showing up, and doing the work.

Even if you don't want to.

Even if you feel bad about it.

Some days, YOU WILL FEEL BAD ABOUT IT.

There is no way out of that.

The only way in is through. And that is where the commitment and focus comes to aid you.

Because you said you would do it.

And you do it.

Not because you told someone else that you would do it.

Not because there is people expecting you to do it.

But because YOU care.

This is about you, and how YOU are going to transform your life, from the inside out.

So commit to time windows, inside time windows.

The one that I created for myself?

88 minutes of deep work every day, for 96 days. Then I take a rest from this discipline for 21 days. I actually designed a calendar as a consequence of this structuring of time, and i'm pretty weird about it (More on that if you are curious enough to DM me and ask).

You do the deepest work that you can. You focus as much as you can. And then you rest.

Every day, when the moment came, I came to my computer, opened loom, opened the custom powerpoint presentation that I had created for this purpose, changed the date on it, changed the index of the day, set up the 88 minute timer, and clicked play to the recording.

Every day.

This is -part of- my loom dashboard:

Videos that no one will ever see. But that is not the point that matters. The important part is that they happened!

And with that, we enter the second phase of our journey:

Or learning to accept life as it is.

If you are at least a little bit familiar with the practice of meditation, you may already have realized that these two meta-skills are the ones that are directly developed through it.

So of course my recommendation will always be for you to start doing it. Start with 5 minutes every day. Then move to 10. Then 15.

When I decided to learn how to code I decided that I would actually focus in two core skills: Meditation and Programming.

They are complementary, and each one of them sustains the other one.

So another invitation that I leave you is to find which are the complementary ones for you.

But anyway. Now we are talking about equanimity here, and that is the acceptance of what is.

Once you enter this process of focus and you commit to do something for a certain period of time:

You will, probably, suck at it. At least for a while.

And more than that being something "real" (that you actually suck at it), my experience tells me that this is more of an -eternal? necessary?- state of mind.

It has been 3 years since I first decided to start programming, and all of me thinks that I suck at it. I reject my relationship to the practice. I feel as if I didn't know how to do it. I feel that everything I do is a mistake.

Basically, I feel that I should be doing something else.

But the difference between that being something that makes me not do it, because I don't want to be seen as a failure, and the actual truth, that is that I do it every day (and ended up being paid for it and in a job that makes me feel valued and where they actually tell me that I add a lot of value to our company because of the skills that I tell myself I suck at) is that I actually don't really care about sucking at it.

Through the repetition of the practice, and the PRACTICAL, DISCIPLINED AND CONSISTENT focus that I had on actually developing myself on the practice, i ended up realizing that it is not about how "good" you do it.

It is about doing it. Showing up.

Letting go of the actual consequences that "doing it" had.

It is not about "learning how to do the thing": That is one of the biggest soul sucking lies of all of existence.

I have a two year old daughter, and I saw myself saying: "I need to learn how to play with her".

In that moment I realized: What?

You don't "learn how to play". You just play.

The same is true for any given skill, even on the first day since you commit to do it.

You don't learn how to write. You just write.

And at the beginning your writing will not be "good". But that polarity is the one that I'm referring to that needs to be dissolved. And that is what equanimity is.

Accepting what is, as it is.

Something being "good" or "bad" is just a mental construct that humans have developed in order to establish themselves as experts on some realms, so that they can use their knowledge to heighten their egoic relationship with themselves (and the world).

When there is a critic and that critic goes to a movie and establishes it as "bad", the only thing that that critic does is building around the upcoming people that will experience that movie a cloud of expectation, of how "they" should perceive the movie because a "person that knows more about movies than them" said that that "should" be a "bad" movie.

But what is a "bad" movie, actually?

It may be that that same movie touches a core part of your being, and that your experience watching it transforms your life.

And it may happen that you don't watch that specific ("bad") movie because that critic said that it was not worthy of your attention.

Expectations everywhere.

We are overflown by expectations of how everything should be, especially about ourselves.

And this is true especially when learning a new skill.

You have a perspective of yourself. A notion of who you are. Where you are standing in life.

Then you start doing something new.

You suck at it. You feel disappointed towards yourself for not being actually good at what you want to do.

You want to be better, in that moment.

And that can be true, even if you have been doing the thing for years and years.

Not accepting the reality of what is the biggest source of human suffering, and learning a new skill is an important trigger for learning how to deal with it.

Equanimity is the practice of accepting what is, as it is.

You show up. You do the work that you said you would do. You practice your craft for the period of time that you said you would do it.

You allow yourself to feel how it feels to go through it. Everything.

You allow yourself to experience how it feels to explore. To play. To have fun.

To suck at it.

Then you smile...

And let go.

You rest on the awareness that you did your best, and remain in the knowledge that tomorrow will be a new day for practicing whatever you said you would do.

You do this, day in and day out.

Exploring what the practice will bring. Allowing yourself to grow and evolve as you learn how to do it with more precision.

Because the notions of "good" and "bad" need to come from the inside, as a consequence of the personal relationship that YOU have with the craft that you decide to explore through your actions.

As time goes on, you will develop a sharper, faster, and more unique capacity of transforming the ideas that you have in your mind into a reality through the craft of your choice.

You will enter that precious state that we call flow.

But: If it is knitting, at first you won't know how to do anything.

Maybe then you will do a pair of socks. Then a sweater.

And then a blanket.

As you get better at doing the thing by accepting that you don’t know everything and viewing each day as a chance to get better at it—you will be able to accomplish more and with greater precision.

And developing a unique and personal style, that can only be a consequence of YOU doing the thing.

Because you, dear reader, are a unique collection of experiences. Every output of a skill you decide to practice, filtered through your unique lens, is valuable.

It doesn't matter which one it is.

Or what you end up doing.

The world is opening, and in the coming years it will reward those that have been training these two core skills.

Because once you understand that these are the fundamental training ground for anything that you want to achieve in life,

YOU BECOME UNSTOPPABLE.

Because you actually know who you are. And that no one can stop you.

Because you know that it is all about putting one step after the other one.

Doing your thing, as focused as you can be.

Letting go as much as you can of the consequences of it.

Learning how to see life as a playground, that has as its core mission the unfolding of spirit through the human experience.

And that only happens by you being who you already are.

Developing a skill is just an excuse for that process to happen.

And for you to learn how to relate to it with love.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your attention.

I hope that this brought some motivation into you, and I hope you know that I'm here, cheering for you.

Waiting for you to come and tell me: Hey JP. I did the work today.

It sucks, but I did it.

And that is, actually, everything that matters.

I rest in the awareness of that.