At the foot of the mointain

Today is January 1st.

I’m not writing this to celebrate achievements or to dramatically close a chapter, but to mark something simpler and more important: clarity.

This past year was special not because of what happened to me, but because of what I chose to do.

For most of my life, science was something I admired from a distance. I always liked the idea of creating, of understanding how things work, of building something useful. I used to say I wanted to be an inventor, but that idea existed more as a vague wish than as a real path. I fantasized about science fiction, drew impossible things, took apart cheap watches—partly because of a childhood obsession with Spider-Man and the idea of making a real web shooter—but most of the time I ended up frustrated and gave up. I watched science communication videos I didn’t understand, thinking they might somehow help… usually for about two minutes.

The curiosity was there, but I had neither the tools nor a method.

And, to be honest, I didn’t have discipline either.

I even remember moments of pure naïveté, like worrying about not having built anything useful when a tsunami was reported near where I lived, even though nothing serious happened in the end. Looking back, I see it clearly now: it wasn’t vocation, it was imagination without direction.

Over time, I abandoned that vague idea of “greatness.” Still, the desire to create never fully disappeared. I never completely drifted away from computers. I stayed close through software: first trying to make games in Unity by copying tutorials, then writing pseudocode, then learning Python. Later came HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, and Next. Without really noticing, I had become a decent programmer—not exceptional, but functional.

However, it was about a year ago when something truly changed.

I started thinking before building.

Sketching.

Researching.

Planning.

And, most importantly, I realized something that seems obvious in hindsight: I like engineering. Not as an aesthetic idea or a fantasy, but as a process. I learned electronics, started building small things, and understood that many of the ideas I had were exaggerated or outright unrealistic—and that was a good thing. It helped ground me, understand real constraints, and build better.

In that year I learned a lot, but I also understood something important: I had only consolidated the basics.

The passion had always been there, but it was still immature. Today, I don’t feel—by any stretch—like someone who truly loves science and proves that love through years of deep work. I’m passionate, deeply so, but I’m only now learning how to channel it.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve just finished walking the path that leads to the beginning of a great mountain. And yes, I’m aware that there are thousands of people who have been climbing it their entire lives. But recognizing that doesn’t discourage me. If anything, it does the opposite.

This year, I learned and got frustrated more than at any other point in my life. My biggest limitation was clear: I didn’t have a system. I learned through bursts of motivation, spontaneous curiosity, without structure or real continuity.

That changes now.

This year, I will keep learning what I dreamed of understanding as a child.

This year, I will build the things I didn’t build before.

This year, I will document the process—not just the results.

Yes, I’m still at the foot of the mountain.

But there’s one thing I’m certain of now: I know how to climb.

And I climb fairly fast.

This blog exists to keep record of that.