Journey of Knowledge: From Rebellion to Enlightenment

Background

Elementary School Years

When I was young, being skeptical and rebellious, I seemed to dislike studying simply because I had to do it. I might have disliked everything - the school I had to attend without knowing why, the education conducted there, my parents' expectations, and so on. As a child, I thought it was natural for me to be this way because there were other kids my age in the same situation, and I didn't even question it.

However, I didn't completely neglect studying. I disliked studying that was forced upon me, like having to memorize, but the process of learning and realizing through knowledge was quite enjoyable. In fact, I remember winning a gold medal in a math competition during elementary school.

Middle School Years

That didn't last long. As I entered middle school, I put down my studies and picked up the computer. I was interested in games, probably influenced by my two older sisters who enjoyed playing games from a young age. While playing games, I saw users playing abnormally, breaking common sense within the set rules of the game, and I was unknowingly excited. From then on, I became curious about how it was possible. Through internet searches, I entered a forum and began to acquire knowledge about computers while befriending people there. It turned out to be the limitations of games running on P2P network configurations, and I realized that various factors like response speed and maintenance costs were intertwined. Through someone I became friends with on the forum, I had the opportunity to build a game server using existing resources, and I felt a unique enjoyment seeing the game server running and logs being printed.

The result of dropping studies was predictable. I had to endure many things like low scores and my parents' worry and anger. As I reached the age to go to high school, many thoughts came to mind. Not only were my high school options very limited, but I couldn't go to the general high school that others commonly attended, and instead had to go to a specialized high school that dealt with machines. Thinking that I wouldn't be able to do anything more with computers at this rate, I immediately decided to go to college.

High School Years

Before entering the specialized high school, I first put down the computer. Then I started going to the library with math books. Lacking mathematical knowledge, I thought a lot when I saw high school math problems. Knowledge has levels too. I can't understand this problem with the knowledge I currently have. I lowered the level of the problems to a level I could understand. Math was easy to follow because it was systematically defined in stages, so if I didn't understand a unit, I could just go back to the previous one. This means that if it's not systematically defined in stages, it's difficult to follow. However, subjects as highly systematized as mathematics are extremely rare. Even with computers, don't you need to know various pieces of knowledge to barely reach a level of understanding? Thinking about these things, I raised the level of all subjects to some extent and entered high school. After that, I maintained the top rank in school and received scholarships for 3 years, graduated, and entered university majoring in computer science.

University Years

During university, in a computer architecture class, when the professor was talking about memory, I suddenly thought, If all programs run on memory, couldn't I manipulate all programs by accessing memory? This perfectly resolved the curiosity I had when I was excited seeing users playing abnormally in games in the past. Through this speculation, I actually conducted tests on various programs, and I felt great joy when the results matched my thoughts.

Conclusion

A very capable friend got a job at a company that would make others envious just by hearing about it. But it seemed that friend had worries too. The role assigned to them in the company didn't seem to suit them. Also, they said that even as time passed, they didn't know what they had accomplished or left behind.

Looking at that friend makes me think a lot. This friend, who has a strong sense of responsibility and needs to leave something behind, and who tests their abilities to the limit, says their goal is FAANG, but they're also afraid of settling here because their current situation is very stable.

Watching that friend made me think a lot. I also wanted to leave something behind in this world. While pondering what I should leave behind that could be valuable, as someone who has gained a lot of insights from slowly and systematically organized knowledge from the past, I thought there was nothing better than this. So, through a blog, I'm going to try to capture my knowledge, which might be nonsense at first, but I'll keep improving it.