I had a hard couple of weeks recently, inside and outside of work. Inside of work I was challenged, and hit the limit of my abilities multiple times debugging some gnarly grpc performance problems.

What I hit on was that it’s time for me to drop the abstractions layers I know, and rebuild my knowledge of computing. From sand all the way to Akka’s actor model. I truly feel on the cusp of something - if I can learn this stuff, I will be able to fundamentally transform my day to day work and become immensely capable. I think I’ve fallen back in love with computing - after my problem for so long with burnout, this feels amazing to say.

My job is like the best gym in the world at the moment, and all I want is to be able to handle more weight.

The biggest struggle I have is discipline. I would classify myself as a mild autodidact - I can learn for a burst of time, but when an interruption comes up (which they always do), it can take me months to recover and get back to my learning routine. This is the problem I need to solve.

So for 2023, I’m going to brew up the plan for the next year. To go deep on computing, to learn so much, to complement and accelerate my everyday work.

I just need a good name for it.. Project Sand. Kind of has a nice ring to it.