Preface#
This article is a record and reflection on life from 2015-08-05 to 2025-08-05.
Unknowingly, we have reached the 100th weekly report, and I always wanted to write something meaningful ceremoniously. I happened to see Alex's article titled "My past decade" and recalled that ten years ago, around this time, I had just received my university admission notice. The gears of fate quietly began to turn, so I also want to talk about the past decade.
The Past Decade#
At the end of July 2015, after the college entrance examination, I had a rare leisure summer vacation. While participating in an international volunteer teaching program in Xinhua, Hunan, I received the admission notice from Wuhan University of Technology, where I was transferred to the English major. In a completely unfamiliar city, school, and major, I felt a bit lost; now in 2025, I am also in a rare gap period, planning next month's volunteer trip, and still feeling somewhat uncertain about the future.
Looking at life from a longer perspective, it sometimes seems to be a cycle, but from my perspective, it is entirely different.
2015 - 2017#
Looking back, I had no hobbies or strengths after coming out of years of exam-oriented education in Zhejiang. Writing seemed to be the only thing I could do well, so I wanted to become a writer or a journalist, making a living with words.
After arriving at school, I joined the college's news center. A few months later, I realized that the "news" here was not as I imagined, conveying truth and power through words, but more of a propaganda tool. This is not an issue with journalism itself, but rather with the environment, where little can be changed by human effort.
The English major was somewhat tedious, with a schedule filled with listening, speaking, grammar, extensive reading, and intensive reading, seemingly trying to break down the English exam paper into individual classes, unlike the charm I saw in "Normal People".
Life seems to be a process of continuous disillusionment.
Besides the major courses, we had two semesters of "Basic Computer Science" classes, which included basic computer terminology and coding practice, using the outdated technology stack of Visual Basic 6.0.
Thanks to Zhejiang's implementation of "quality education" for several years, this was not the first programming language I encountered. I had played with Fortran in elementary school and learned some VB in computer classes in middle and high school, although it was all just a superficial understanding under exam-oriented courses.
I can't remember much of the course content, probably just applications like ordering systems or internet cafe management systems. VB was indeed a backward and crude language; the UI part could even be done by dragging and dropping without writing code. However, it allowed me to run an interactive application on the computer, which might have been my Aha Moment, feeling the charm of programming.
My roommates and classmates often asked me questions about the course, so I wrote a twenty-page tutorial in Word explaining the core knowledge points from scratch, which even became the "senior notes" that were still circulated in later years.
During that time, I developed a somewhat absurd idea — "Is it possible for me to make a living with code?"
So, for the next six months, I tried to learn Python through some online courses and supplemented my basic knowledge with Huazhong University's supplementary materials. I learned in a very scattered and inefficient way, still only able to print some things in the command line, unable to write any decent applications, but I was very happy spending time in front of the computer every day.
In 2017, a high school classmate from the liberal arts track who successfully transferred to the cybersecurity major invited me to work on an outsourcing project together, creating a company website and CMS backend using PHP. At that time, code management was still done using Gitee. It wasn't until a couple of years later when I thought about backing it up to GitHub that I realized I had used the name "Arthur" in a rather cringeworthy way. There were no commit standards, and the code was a mess, most of it still covered by my classmates. However, seeing the website finally go live still gave me a sense of accomplishment; perhaps this is what "creation" feels like.
2017 - 2020#
In my junior year, I thought that just studying behind closed doors wasn't a long-term solution, so I planned to look for some internships. Since I didn't come from a formal background, I mainly considered some startups in Hangzhou. Eventually, I applied to a company called "Programmer Inn". At that time, I had no concept of remote work or independent development, and I never expected that I would actually walk this path in the future; it was a kind of fate.
I had a good conversation with their CEO, but he said my abilities were more suited for operations and copywriting, and having one more or one less front-end intern wouldn't make much difference to the company. I might create greater value in a more suitable position.
But he still gave me the choice of position.
This was my first internship, and I hesitated. If a CEO or the market thought I was more suited for another direction, did that mean my initial choice was wrong?
So I chose to do operations. A few months later, I found that I was indeed in my comfort zone, but it wasn't what I truly wanted, so I left.
A few months later, since I had already been paying attention to some trends in the blockchain industry, I started to publish some articles on platforms like Zhihu. I caught the attention of a co-founder of a blockchain investment company, who invited me to meet their team in Xiamen.
Looking back now, I was quite bold at that time; it was my first time flying and my first time going to Xiamen. Normally, I would have probably been caught in a northern Myanmar park.
I was lucky to be part of a great team. During the following time, I tried many different roles in the team, including product, operations, project due diligence, researcher, and some technical development. I traveled on business over thirty times in six months, often waking up and momentarily forgetting which city I was in.
At this point, I faced a life choice. It seemed that this job proved I could add value in many areas beyond coding. Did I really need to compete for a programmer position with many computer science graduates or those who had been exposed to coding since childhood in an already saturated market?
But this time, I no longer hesitated. I discovered that I enjoyed writing code, even if I might not be good at it or ultimately succeed; I still wanted to do it.
After graduating from my undergraduate studies, I took a gap year, preparing for my master's application in Hong Kong while continuing to work part-time at this company. Due to my contributions to several projects, I received what could be considered my "first bucket of gold" as a bonus. By the end of 2019, I had saved enough for my tuition to study in Hong Kong, interviewed in Shenzhen, and received an offer from the computer science department at HKU.
I didn't have a particularly extraordinary life. From the moment I conceived the idea to actually receiving the offer that would serve as my stepping stone to coding, it took me five years, during which I experienced countless hesitations and retreats, but in the end, I still achieved it.
2020 - 2021#
After enrolling, to reduce the gap with my classmates and learn as much knowledge as possible, I took challenging courses like data mining and machine learning, and even attended blockchain courses from the adjacent Fintech major. I would go to the library at around 6 AM to secure a seat and return to my small rental apartment around 11 PM.
I don't know if it was due to anxiety or the water quality in Hong Kong, but I started experiencing insomnia and hair loss, which lasted for several months.
The knowledge density in this semester far exceeded that of my past few years, but I seemed to understand and digest it well. I even took on the role of group leader in several group assignments and worked on some interesting projects — "xDeepFM for Recommender Systems", "Uright".
During my year at HKU, beyond knowledge, I gained a significant boost in confidence. Even when surrounded by classmates from prestigious universities, I still felt that I was not inferior to them. I realized that I could truly achieve this.
2021 - 2022#
After graduation, I chose not to go to a big company but instead interned at a company working on consortium blockchain. Initially, I only intended to intern for a few months before participating in the autumn recruitment, but I encountered a significant mentor in my life, my leader, Tao.
He was probably in his forties and trusted me a lot. Even before my internship period was over, he let me lead a team to work on a project that lasted over half a year. We often had meetings on weekends, coding all day long, and I could often hear the sounds of his young son and daughter playing.
So I chose to stay. In this team, I could freely explore technology. Even if there were areas I couldn't handle, he would always support me. His passion and curiosity for technology were inspiring. It was the first time I truly felt that I could maintain a love for coding and that I could continue writing like this.
More than a year passed, and my work began to stabilize and become repetitive. Additionally, consortium blockchain seemed a bit dull, so I started exploring the direction of Web3.
2023 - 2025#
In early 2023, after taking a long vacation, I decided to resign.
For this job change, I only interviewed two companies, one was RSS3, and the other was OpenBuild, which had not yet officially launched at that time. The former was the team I later worked with for over two years, and I also deeply participated in the latter, almost becoming an "external" member.
Before joining RSS3, I had various serendipitous encounters with many of my "future colleagues" and was always curious and looking forward to this uniquely spirited team.
I joined the network group, mainly focusing on backend development for on-chain data indexing and processing, but I often explored fun things in the Crossbell, RSSHub, and Folo groups, writing some contracts, doing some frontend work, and even later doing iOS development.
Although I haven't worked at many companies, I can still feel the engineering culture and great work atmosphere. At one point, I even told a senior, "The company is great; it allows me to happily write code and even pays me for it." The senior replied that I might be a chosen worker.
Perhaps due to overthinking recently, I often have late-night talks with seniors. A few days ago, we talked about what I had said.
After resigning in mid-July, even though no one was urging me to connect with any demands, and even though there was no longer a company paying me, I still seemed willing to write code intensively. Perhaps this is also a kind of evidence; I might truly love writing code from the bottom of my heart.
2025 -#
The time ahead is still unclear, but perhaps I will focus on the development and exploration of my Web3Insight project, spend time with family, do volunteer work, and set off again after sorting out my thoughts.
Life and work have their ups and downs, but looking at it from the perspective of a decade, I still feel it is truly wonderful. I am grateful to my self from ten years ago, allowing my present self to create like magic with code, to contribute to open source, and to make some small changes in this world.
Epilogue#
Today, I wanted to write down this passage for a special reason.
August 5th is my cousin's birthday. He was born in 1996, and we grew up together, sharing everything. He always told me he wanted to study abroad and see more of the world. I always responded, "There will be opportunities; life is long."
Until mid-2021, a medical accident occurred, and he forever remained at the age of twenty-five. Originally, he was one year older than me, and now I am already three years older than him. After that, my life seemed to gain an additional layer of depth, carrying another life.
Life has its joys and sorrows, and having the opportunity to experience various flavors of life is already enough to be beautiful.