HI everyone!!
I have written two rough drafts of two essays yesterday night and need to pick and finish one for tonight.
Both are fairly short right now and I need your help. I appreciate every comment and time that you commit. Thank you (:
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I wasn’t really sure why, but when I was 12 I found myself stuck at a bike repair shop at 9 pm waiting for my mom to pick me up. Maybe she was stuck at work, but maybe she forgot I was here. At a moment like this, when family just isn’t there, a community steps in and it becomes apparent what the role of a community is.
That bike shop is a non-profit organisation that restores bicycles for environmental, charitable, and educational purposes. I spent that summer in the community learning to repair bicycles for myself, children, and Burning Man goers. From this experience, I learned to value commitment in a community. There ought to be commitment to bear an attitude of humbleness for those who teach you. There ought to be commitment to patience and devotion for those that need your help.
A community composed of commitment to its members and groups is not a community with individuals too lazy to consider the perspectives and backgrounds of others. We have committed to each other.
As I waited for my mother, the owners waited with me, even providing snacks. And we talked. Their commitment made this place a community.
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Always and still in the back of my mind, I wonder if leaving my earliest friends was a mistake.
After exploring the boundless landscapes of my first computer game, Spore, and its incredible simulation of species evolution, I dreamed of creating digital realms myself. Sketching out character designs and constructing plot lines and composing messy soundtracks, I thought I found the perfect combination for my skills and interests. First there was incredible momentum in my hope for a career in the field but then, I found out about programming languages.Learning to communicate with computers with their own vocabulary and grammar and syntax takes months and years to learn, and though I was enthusiastic about pursuing the skill, something held me back.
I was bullied for the earliest parts of my childhood, and I thought that maybe if I didn’t stutter or didn’t have this huge, awful scar on my head I would make some friends. It seemed like my wish was granted as both started fading little by little as I grew. Playing basketball during lunch and watching funny online videos after school, I thought I finally had friends.My world at the time decided my two desires could not be satisfied at the same time. Time I spend coding couldn’t be spent conforming to the hobbies of my hard-found friends. I mean, only nerds learn code, right?
Right in the center of my mind, a fault-line developed as my fervor to program pushed against my fear of solitude. I couldn’t go back. But I couldn’t go forward. It’s this notion that I write about. There was a conflict of interest but I finally decided to commit my time to writing code instead of going to play ball with my friends.
The next year, seventh grade, I definitely noticed the disparity between my level of play and theirs on the court. We grew apart and though I was nervous about the decision I made, I was glad that I put my passion before the opinions of my peers. Some friends respected my new-found hobby but some acted like they never knew me.It was difficult to give up something I’ve always wanted for the first decade of my life but going through this I gained confidence in my abilities and respect for myself and others, recognizing that each person has his or her own hobby and none is better than another.
The gradual experience of risking what seemed like everything to chase something that could turn out to be nothing put me in a spot where I became more confident in my abilities. I began collaborating online with other programmers and working on other people’s open source projects on code repositories like GitHub while developing my own coding portfolio.
Going through this while I was in elementary school and middle school, I was working towards the goal alone and seemingly without direction.This cultivated a strong sense of mature empathy in my character. I founded the STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts, and Math) Club in my junior year of high school, sharing collective knowledge and passion in these fields and contributing to an encouraging community for young designers and young scientists and young programmers.
Some of my earliest friends I never saw again but as we all grew up and matured, it became much easier to share my passion for programming without feeling alienated. If a situation like this ever comes up again, I know for sure that the qualities I’ve acquired will put me in a good spot.
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Thank you very much for reading this!! I am very grateful for you!
~Ryan