who
My name is Álvaro, and I'm several personas depending from where you ask, but on this place I am:
- Senior Full-Stack Developer at KOPE AI.
- highly functional but also highly distractible person (ADHD maybe?).
- somewhat emotionally limited individual, but working on it.
- generally, nice and approachable guy.
I was born in Madrid, Spain. Fast-worward just a few years. After studying a Building Engineering degree and working some good time in engineering and architectural practices (Madrid, London), I slowly transitioned to software.
Well, coding.
Architecture and construction is slowly getting more "sofisticated", with visual programming tools like Dynamo and Grasshopper, but also python and c# being the mainstream programming languages used. I got all nerdy into it.
A year or so went by. I made doubtly awesome plugins for
Revit at work, discovered open source, shared a few things here and there.
Got an interview! But they ghosted me... but then I got another job as Computational Designer! Right before ending the probation period, the first ones offered me the job again.
Long story short, I accepted.
This was ca. 2017. The journey has been joyful, with its ups and downs, with the constant struggle with impostor syndrome. But I've made it so far. So much that looking back at old projects makes me shiver at the terrible structure, lack of cohesiveness and, simply put, shit code I produced. And I love it. I love it as it shows me a tangible proof that I'm moving forward.
why
I've often lied to myself into thinkg my brain can keep information indefinitely. Somehow, it's been ok so far. But while doing so I've ended up having a hard time explaining topics and ideas outloud, to other people. Same topics and ideas that instanly make perfect sense in my head.
Also, I've never been taught to think inside, about why I do what I do. About what drives me. To an extent, about who I am.
For the past few years I've been into therapy sessions. I believe everyone needs therapy. But personally it has helped me to process and better understand how I behave, think and feel. An outcome of this process has been realising I tend to skip processing stuff and mostly move to the next thing. It being an online article. A book. A YouTube video or a random paper on something theoretical that I can't possibly understand. Even personal "trauma".
Recently I've been reading and listening about the benefits of writing. Writing as a tool to cement knowledge, practice communication and share information. Writing as a mechanism to process and reflect ideas. In summary, writing as active thinking.
what
This space is for me. Somewhere I can commit to write more. To process. Something I can nurture and learn new topics with, them being work related or personal. A small dot in the web.
This dot needs to be simple, for my own sake. I've spent who knows how many hours in "productivity" platforms setting up tables, and templates, and databases and pages. Some times used them for a while. Others not at all. I want to try this time from the basics of #plaintext, avoiding starting with formal structure (says he making an HTML website).
Overall, this site is an experiment. Maybe I find the right system that works for me, or maybe not. All I know is that I'm mostly targeting myself as audience, so although I do hope you find something useful here (given you've read so far!), it's ok if you don't.