"Jumped over a twig only to trip on a log."

Never have I ever felt such connection with some random middle school -esque quite this strong. Something probably gotten off Facebook back when it wasn't such a pain to deal with, when most users knew how to use the internet responsibly because my generation was one where they preached just giving your age on the internet would get you kidnapped as if netizens were faefolk looking to steal your identity, piece by piece, for some vaguely less important goal no one ever gets to.

All this because I did not take precalculus and, by extension, can not take calculus. For a computer science degree, that's kinda important. In a standardized system, there are standards. Sure, you can brute force your way through a task or goal, but now you have two factors where you could have had one. Two things that can, and will, go wrong given the chance OR they will multiply into a bloated mess and force you to either get your life together or sift through them, no doubt breaking everything because you are a barbarian with a keyboard.

What barbarism have I unleashed upon the poor digital world? That little thing where you swap colors by picking the tabs. I made it to test removing and adding classes, intending to add onto it even more. At 300+ lines of repetitive code (with generous use of linebreaks), I realized how badly I messed up when I tried to do literally anything else. To do anything else, I'd probably have to write another 300+ lines of repetitive code that would only bandage the first half. It's like reloading a single use confetti cannon.

You can do it, but why? By the time you've reloaded it, you could've figured out how to build a better canon that is meant to handle what you're trying to accomplish: MORE THAN THE BARE MINIMUM. It sounds silly, but that's all anything people ever do amounts to. Why do we cook tasty food when we just need nutrition? Why do people want heated seats if their car has a heating system? Why go to space to drop a feather and a hammer when we could calculate the results already?

Because the bare minimum just isn't enough.

So, while I take this humble victory and my ten losses for the project I'm moving away from, I'm recementing why I'm doing this. There is no noble purpose or goal, no war against ignorance, nor is there an ounce of pride I deserve to feel out of it. I'm doing this simply because I can. Not even that I should. For self satisfaction, to feel like I have some purpose for being alive, because to be human is to devour your own ego endlessly in the pursuit of the illusion of 'more'.