Why I Build
On curiosity, creation, and the joy of making things that didn't exist before.
There's something magical about the moment when code you've written springs to life. When buttons respond to clicks, data flows through systems, and pixels arrange themselves into interfaces that people can use. That moment—that transition from idea to reality—is why I build.
I didn't always know I wanted to be a developer. But I've always been someone who needs to understand how things work. As a kid, I took apart everything I could get my hands on. Remote controls, old computers, my dad's watch (sorry, Dad). I was driven by this insatiable curiosity about the hidden mechanisms that made the world function.
The Joy of Creation
Code is the ultimate medium for curiosity. It's a language for thinking, a tool for creation, and a way to solve real problems. Every project starts with a question: What if? What if there was a better way to do this? What if we could build something that doesn't exist yet?
That's the beauty of building—you're not just consuming, you're creating. You're adding something new to the world. Even if it's small, even if only a few people use it, you've made something that matters.
Learning by Doing
The best way to learn anything is to build it. Not to read about it, not to watch tutorials (though those help), but to actually sit down and make it work. You'll encounter problems you never anticipated. You'll discover elegant solutions you'd never have thought of. You'll fail, iterate, and eventually succeed.
Every project I've built has taught me something new. Sometimes it's a technical skill—a new framework, a design pattern, a clever algorithm. But more often, it's something deeper: how to scope a project, how to make tradeoffs, how to ship despite uncertainty.
Building Together
The best part about building is sharing what you've made. Open sourcing a library and seeing others use it. Writing about a problem you solved and helping someone else avoid that pitfall. Collaborating with teammates to build something bigger than any of you could have built alone.
We're all waddling through this together, trying to make sense of complex systems and build things that matter. And when we share our knowledge, our code, and our stories, we make the journey a little easier for everyone.
So that's why I build. Not because I have to, but because I can't imagine doing anything else.