Another day setting up OpenClaw

Four years ago, I began reading Li Xiaolai’s The Craft of Selfteaching, the first book that really introduced me to programming. It was well written, and I worked hard at it. Over four years I read it closely more than four times and tried its exercises at least six times. It ran through much of my university life. At the beginning I did not know what I would use it for, but I was sure learning it would matter to my future and perhaps to my family’s too.

Just after my first reading, 2023 brought a wave of AI tools. I tried large language models such as ChatGPT, image generators such as Midjourney, and tools for video and voice. If I had not first studied programming, I think I would have noticed much less of what was changing.

Still, one reading left me confused, so I went back a second and third time. I was only beginning to learn how to learn; I could not master Python by reading the book once or twice. Repeated attempts gradually taught me that using what I learned mattered.

The book describes four stages: learning, practicing, using, and making. For my first three readings I was stuck mainly at the first. I barely practiced, let alone used the ideas to make something. During the fourth reading I finally saw it: learning without practice would not take me far. I began trying to move toward building things. The results were imperfect, but the shift in how I thought prepared me to create more deliberately later.

Four years have passed. During this Spring Festival I have socialized less and spent more time talking with AI. I did not expect to have so much to discuss with a machine. Once a topic opened up, I kept returning to it from morning until night. Thoughts that had stayed locked in my head became visible and workable. For the first time I felt the practical benefit of paying for a tool that helped me produce things. I cannot easily explain the feeling to others, and I do not need to persuade them to follow my path.

Time matters, and technology is changing quickly. I want to try more and make more while what I learned over those four years can meet the possibilities of the moment.