This week’s blog title might be all gloom, but unfortunately, it describes my week quite aptly. As mentioned in my last update, I was traveling at the start of the week and only got back wednesday morning. I was eager to get back home and get to my things but instead ended up succumbing to the attention game on Hinge, while also discovering how years of abstinence from social media platforms can mean nothing at all, and how easy it was for the “algorithm” to suck me in.

I got back on Hinge recently and saw myself falling to the same pitfalls that accompanied my previous use of the platform. It’s not difficult to notice that most conversations here are transactional in nature but the attention I get from all the shallow talk makes me want them more. I haven’t analysed why I crave for it this much, but I attribute this mostly to the fact that I only started socialising with females after I turned 26 and now that I feel normal talking to them, a part of me still wants to get as much of it as it can. There are times when I’m already talking to more than 5 matches but I will still want to exhaust my likes for the day because why not talk to more women when I can?! I tell myself that the only reason I use these apps is that I’ve discovered it to be a really good way of meeting interesting people that I would never get to meet otherwise. It’s simply another way to make yourself visible and I genuinely believe this, but I’m not sure if I’m just deluding myself with my recent behavior.

Anyway, one of these interesting conversations led to a date and this girl somehow convinced me to install Instagram, something I haven’t felt the need to touch since 10th standard in school. I thought to myself — “what’s the harm in getting a few reels in my inbox every day”. Well, this completely spiralled out of control on the very first day as I ended up spending more than 2 hours doom scrolling, unable to stop myself from opening the app every 15 minutes or so, remarking how funny some of the content was. At the end of the day, I was deeply dissatisfied by myself but also amazed at how easily I had given up control of my time. The next day, I started my morning well, not turning my internet on until I was done with my morning ritual, but I could only see 2 hours turn to 4 as I found myself unable to resist the urge to open the app every 10 minutes, even though I had turned off the notifications as a first layer of defense. By the end of Friday, however, I started to get bored of the repetitive comedy and this short, sudden addiction faded gradually. I think it’s sometimes okay to have a few days like this and then naturally realize how uncomfortable it makes you feel. I think about it positively because I now don’t have the need to uninstall the app to stop being addicted to it. This means that I can actually work on curating my feed and consume the content that I actually want to. I don’t think any social media platform is inherently bad, but resisting the algorithm’s pull and forcing your own discovery mechanism is really important if you want to stay in control. I think I can do that now.

On vibe coding, and the lack of immersion that comes with it

When I quit my IT job back in August last year, I always knew I would continue writing code because I still loved it. The state of AI and agentic tools at that time was mature enough that I decided to almost exclusively switch to vibe coding, as the engineering dimension of the stuff I made didn’t matter to me as much anymore. I thought building things would be rewarding in itself.

To this end, I was quite enthusiastic when I started my first vibe coding project. Word Dash is an online version of a card based vocabulary game I sometimes play with family and friends. I’m talking about it now because after a couple of months of abandonment, I finally deployed it this week, but I’m not really satisfied with the end result. As a backend engineer, I always knew that the frontend was going to be a challenge, but more than the UI, I’ve found that my limited understanding of design is the real bottleneck. Agentic coding only works when you know what you want the agent to solve really well.

When I was actively working on it, this usually led to frustration as I was struggling to describe the correct flow and had to keep telling Codex that something was wrong, even though I had no idea myself what that something was. I was recently thinking about what Arjun said here about how immersion is the key, not productivity, and as I now try to reinvest my time into this project, I find myself excited again. I will deliberately go slow and understand what I’m trying to achieve before prompting away anything. Right now, my own game is something I don’t understand but demystifying it should be a great learning experience. There’s a lot of unfamiliar territory but charting it well should be extremely rewarding.

In the meantime, I would love for you guys to check out the first prototype here and would greatly appreciate any feedback. Thank you!

I’ve also been trying to beautify my room currently (I’ll show you a pic shortly and you’ll understand the need for it) and although I got this beautiful 3D postcard from Thailand as a gift for my niece, I realized it was not available in India and decided to buy something else for her 😂. Before you bash me, I genuinely believe she’s getting something better folks! The motivation to do this has existed for some time now, but I’m also reading Tuesdays with Morrie currently, and in one of the chapters, the dying protagonist discusses how he feels grateful to be surrounded by memories of the people he loves and cares for deeply — photos with his children and wife, gifts from former colleagues and well-wishers, and anything else that reminds him of the beautiful life he has lived. I was initially planning to fill my desk with random stuff like posters and what not but I think I’d like a photo wall now. Although there are not too many photos of me because I’m never really keen on getting clicked, I will collect the ones I have so that I’m constantly reminded of the love and the lovely people I have around me. Before I show you the photos, here’s a little quote from the book which I want to remember well:

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in

— Morrie Schwartz

Anyway, this is where I work:

perhaps now you know why I frequent third spaces for work haha
perhaps now you know why I frequent third spaces for work haha

Not the best week but shit happens and although I realize I’ve not honored my commitments lately, there’s no point in regret. I hope the coming week is more productive immersive! See ya next week, awesome people!

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