Who do you want to be?

One time when I switched schools as a child, a teacher said something profound that still sticks with me today. He said, “hey, just so you know, at your new school you can be whoever you want to be.”

I didn’t think about it then nearly as much then as I do now. As you get older, the opportunities to re-imagine yourself get a lot thinner. Changing who you are becomes a lot harder.

If you’re in a nice comfortable friend group who enjoy snarky quips, it’s hard to break the habit if you decide you want to be more constructive. If your family loves scoring “points” in politics and you just want to go help clean up plastic from the beach, it’s hard to go out on your own without the crabs in the bucket sucking you back in. And even when the people around you are well-intentioned, it can be hard to change: if you live with your boyfriend and want to learn how to draw, it’s hard to find a space where you can fail and suck without feeling judged. Of course, your partner is asking to see your drawings with good, supportive intentions, and you aren’t “hiding” it – but really nagging at you, you think it’s easier to just not draw in the first place than to share something that’s just so bad.

In goal setting, some studies suggest you’re less likely to stick with a goal once you share it with others [1]. Perhaps it’s related that the more rooted you become in your social sphere the harder it is to change something significant about yourself without effectively stating it as a goal. If you want to take up drawing or go help pick up trash on the beach, you’re implying a goal of who you want to be, and then you have to confront it as one. This limits your ability to change – and your ability to grow.

But, as the saying goes: on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Or in my case, a narwhal.

So today I start this new pseudonym. I’m not exactly trying to cover my tracks or stay purely anonymous – I’m sure people who know me would recognize me (my stories aren’t that original), and I’m sure if someone who was bored on the internet wanted to doxx me they could (but please don’t) – but I’m taking the opportunity afforded by this pseudonymity to more-freely express who I want to be.

The world and the internet have a lot of bad [2]. From scams and grifts, to the consolidation of ownership (and subsequent concentration of power and walled gardens) to constant doomer negativity, the list goes on. It’s hard to block out the noise. But if you can, the world also still has real people building real things, just like before. I am a developer. I get to play with digital Lego all day to make something out of nothing. I don’t have to buy building materials or tools to create something, I don’t need a license or accreditation or a permit. I just type random characters out of my brain and a “thing” becomes real. Not only that, but if it’s bad, we can throw it away without any material cost. It’s as close to magic as exists and I try not to take this for granted.

I want to teach and write and build things that help push the world forward just a little bit. Very few of us are going to change the world in the hero sense, but we can make our little corner of the world better. We can be more constructive and supportive of others’ goals. We can build things that help people. We can find joy through creating even if the broader world is crumbling. And we can rekindle the old-school hacker/maker mentality: just building because we can and because it’s fun. We don’t have to ask permission, we can just do it. That’s who I am.

Humbly yours,
just a narwhal dev.

p.s. happy new year and cheers to 2025!

[1] I know people immediately refute this with personal anecdotes, and I used to as well – but now I accept that our subconscious is maybe more powerful than we give it credit for, so even if this feels wrong or counter-intuitive it’s worth entertaining.

[2] I write this pithily to imply it as basic, generic canon