This gone weekend, I was just exploring the options of building a blog/website from scratch, without the most popular option - wordpress (i am a freelance wordpress website developer, developing websites for small businesses). *A thread on Learning.*
I had created a blog that works with github without requirement for any additional hosting or dns registration in a username.github.io format. Since i wasn't particular about a .com or .in for a resume type website, and since github is popular among CS circle, i went ahead.
I remembered this few days back and I was pondering the idea of a proper blog to share the notes I take on various books I read, stuff I watch, etc. The threads on twitter are way too long some people said. I maintained a blog for a couple years back in 2015-16 (wordpress based)
The primary reason I stopped writing back then (around late 2015 after gaining few thousand followers on Quora and on my blog) was because I felt I was too young and had more to learn than to offer anyone. So I set out on a journey to learn.
Since then I have read over 300 books in 4 years, (first two years both over 110 books per year and last two years around 70-80 books in total) and am now at a place where I read and re-read few high-quality books to absorb them through and through.
I also saw @LifeMathMoney account and saw what he's done with his blog. He'd started back in 2016-17 and now he has 140k followers, has a 5-6 figure income per annum (in USD) through his twitter/blog/books and has amassed huge following mainly for his no-nonsense articles.
I have dabbled in various endeavors in the last 5 years after graduation, and one thing I always missed was the peace and happiness that deep work with single minded focus could offer. One thing I realised about achieving success is also a momentary insight.
The momentary insight was exactly when I looked at @LifeMathMoney account and I realised that consistency in hard/smart work of doing something is what accounts for majority of success that people find. I realised if I'd kept writing, I'd have had (probably) a similar following.
But then, the people who follow your updates, read your blog, etc., - all that is end result. Like in trading where people focus solely on P&L (the outcome) as opposed to their trading discipline and discipline in what process drives the P&L figure,
So, the insight i had was - if you stopped focusing on the result/outcome as said in Gita, and focused on consistently chipping away at your craft for at least 5 years, and with the right approach, there's no way you can't taste success - coz success follows the right process.
So, I decided that I would first build consistency and discipline in the one or maximum two things I would do for the next 5 years. Best way to learn something is by teaching. Second best way is note-taking.
So, I thought I'd take notes on things I learn, and share them as a way of teaching people (adding my own twists and flair to the material/notes I share). So, I didn't want to spend on a .com domain registration or paying for hosting or any of that fluff.
Then I remembered the website I made with github pages, and started exploring the technology behind Jekyll. Looked at a lot of its themes and decided that I'd like something that's not too cluttered and overloaded, that felt very minimal and brought your focus to the essential.
I absolutely love the @zen_habits website and its content and its theme is also very focused (absolutely minimal, only what's essential) and he'd shared the theme for free too. But it was for wordpress only. I had to find a way to get a similar outlook in Jekyll to work on github
I explored hundreds of themes, found 6-7 themes that were truly barebones minimal and appealing to look at, non-distracting. Every theme had some hit/miss features and I thought I'd just download them all and build something from scratch integrating best features of all.
Finally I ended up making a theme and the three days I spent on this, I woke up, ate, worked on this, slept, repeated. Three days went in a jiffy and I forgot time and space while doing this. Attached SS is a preliminary iteration. The posts have a book-reading like feel, and 
the front page is truly minimal with absolutely essential items only (ignore the dummy posts in place of Lorem Ipsum). At most, I would include a subscription page and that's it. I could just build the entire thing, push it to github and host it on github itself.
In this process I also discovered @Ghost through reddit and since people were hyping it up, checked it out too. Their basic theme itself was like a premium theme, but lacked features, and didn't have the look and feel that I wanted. So I set aside another 3 days to work on it.
Downloaded the Ghost setup for local customisation through code, tried the zenhabits clone theme for Ghost - and it didn't work as well. After trying few other themes, settled on Ghost's basic framework and started to do minor/major edits on how I wanted it to look.
After doing the envt setup, learning the entire HandlebarJS and related technologies basics, I set out to working with the custom js, css, and theme structure files to edit the blog framework. Decently successful, took me couple of days, but broke it down to essentials.
Then, I realized I wanted an archive page - for people to find older posts by year and month. The feature wasn't available in the theme by default. So, I built the feature from scratch, borrowing ideas from few other developers on the @Ghost github forum.
Back in 2017 when I quit my job, when I came out of the job, I had a decent amount of resentment for software engineering and coding/programming (mainly due to the kind of work i was doing + the people around me). I resolved to never go back to the field.
Coding though, has showed up to me in many different forms - making sure it's a skill I never ignore. It could be for backtesting ideas or for statistically testing strategies, or for taking care of automating simple stuff with my business, I have gone back to the coding board.
Honestly, I hated learning C, C++, Java, and all the rote theoretical concepts back in college, and didn't really much enjoy learning programming for the sake of learning it. My purpose back then was to score well above 90% to have attendance waiver. So learn I did.
Working at PayPal was predominantly what formed my opinions about life, work, and respecting the work of the soul, and experiencing the soul of the work. I did neither. I programmed (predominantly programming 2 days and cleaning up after others for 28 days a month).
Through trading/finance, I have rediscovered a strong interest in math and coding - both of which I grew up hating on/resenting for variety of reasons even though I was good at them. Typical middle class guy working the ass off for existential survival reasons.
This brings me to the core #learning I had from all these experiences, especially driving home a strong point. Learning just for the sake of learning, or for any superficial reasons is not going to be permanent and isn't even going to be impactful.
Humans are meant to create - and the act of creation has to come from a place of purpose that speaks to the soul. The purpose that society gives kids to study math or CS or Geography so that they can pass their boards or get admits in colleges doesn't speak to their spirit/soul.
In this process, a lot of kids inevitably drift, and add to it social stress and other factors, we bring up kids to hate on certain things/subjects/fields that they would otherwise be very passionately curious and intrigued about.
This is solely because education system across the world is trying to fit everyone into one system, in the process of which we create obedient followers, not many independent, intellectually/spiritually awakened creators. If only a person can enjoy the act of truly creating,
they would then know the joy it brings to their heart and soul. What drives mass unhappiness across the world is shutting out the soul's voice, and following society's cues on what to focus on, what to show interest towards, and this drives what people learn.
So, learning as a process is never enjoyable for most people and most people stop picking up books after they are done with their graduation. What a waste of beautiful life! When I did this theme development for last 6 days, I felt that joy, unbridled, unadulterated.
And, I realized that the reason I love math and coding today is also the reason why I hated them growing up. My love for them now is strongly driven by me listening to what speaks to my spirit, and if one learns from a place of strong purpose driven by their spirit,
I think each human being can take up something and be successful at it - provided consistency, discipline, and fervous ardour - which all suddenly come out of nowhere when you pursue something that speaks to you innately.
So, that's my thread. I know it's all over the place, but if you could take something away from this thread, it's that if you are consistently improving yourself, you can succeed in most things you take up; if you learn from a place of strong spiritual purpose,
you'll absorb so much in so little time; if you have such a strongly soul-seated purpose, ardour, discipline, everything just happens. So, listen to that inner voice that you have muffled muted for so long, turn up the volume, and start here.
