Starting Again

I’ve been thinking about what I wrote in 2026 Resolution, and about everything that has happened this year, both in my personal life and in my country.

A friend of mine who had been living with cancer passed away. There were protests in Iran, and then war. It wasn’t a year when working, blogging, or writing consistently came easily.

But I’m also reminding myself who this blog is for. I am its main audience. I would be happy if someone else found it useful, but I want this place to help me remember events, clarify my goals, and understand what I’m learning.

So I want to start again.

A human, not a success machine

Over the last couple of months, I’ve started doing a few things to make life a little easier.

I started cycling, which has been really good for me. I’m also trying to learn about myself differently: as a human, not just as a success machine.

I still spend a lot of time working with AI and LLMs. In my day-to-day engineering work, I feel about as efficient as I can currently be, like many other engineers using these tools.

But efficiency at work isn’t everything. There are still parts of my life, outside work, that I want to give more attention to.

What does it mean to add value?

A lot has changed since I wrote my resolution. A year from now, engineering will probably look different again.

Sometimes this feels like an industrial revolution, or perhaps something even bigger. But change is part of life. We keep learning through it.

What I’m less certain about is the value I can bring.

I think the companies building the underlying AI systems create value. But when it comes to wrappers and resellers, I’m less sure what additional value they bring. I’m asking that question about my own work, too.

I’ve created personal projects and GitHub repositories. But I don’t know how useful they are to anyone else when another person could build something similar in a day or two—or simply ask a model to build the features they need.

With newer models, generating a whole project in one attempt is becoming easier. That leaves me unsure about which direction to take.

I don’t have an answer yet.

Keeping the ability to learn

One thing does feel clear: I want to keep my ability to learn sharp.

I don’t know exactly which things I learn today will be useful later. But I want to keep learning, even while I’m unsure about the direction.

Not all of that learning needs to be about engineering.

I’m also trying to learn Dutch, the language of the country I live in. I find it funny that passing the language exams and getting a Dutch passport doesn’t necessarily mean feeling comfortable speaking, reading, or understanding Dutch.

I want to actually learn the language, not just pass the exams. But I’m not sure yet how well I’ll manage.

Writing as something human

I also want to spend more time learning to write.

Writing is one of the human parts of my life that I want to develop. I want this blog to contain my thoughts and experiences, even when they’re unfinished or uncertain.

I’ll use AI to review what I write and help make it more readable. But I don’t want to ask it to write a blog post for me. Most of what’s here should come from me; AI can help with the editing.

What I care about now

I’m not sure what the future will look like, or exactly where my work should go next.

For now, there are two things I want to keep at the center:

Continuing to learn.
Staying connected with other humans.

Everything else can fit around those two priorities.