There’s a paragraph on my web site, on all my personal web sites that I ever have published, that I truly believe in.

One of the benefits of having an open mind is that one’s thoughts and opinions will eventually change. There is no shame at all in changing personal views and beliefs over newly presented evidence.

I really believe in that and I experience this on a daily basis. There’s not a single day that passes and I don’t think about how I’ve been growing up and changing my ideas, belief, and my way of thinking. Every day, I think to myself about how silly I was just a year ago.

I used to think I’m a communist/anarchist. I believed in that system and I promoted it. There’s no doubt that communism is pretty in theory and I loved that theory but I grew up to realize how dangerous it is. How practically it creates dictatorships. It’s been long since I admired a communist.

I remember how in my teen years I used to love Che Guevara. Who wouldn’t love that lovely man on poster? Now I resent that racist, bigoted, mass murderer.

I used to love BMWs, now, as an adult, I love Benz.

I came to realization that growing up has a real impact on you. Age is not just a number, it really matters sometimes. It shows off your experiences and maturity. It shows you how much you’ve changed over time and how much you’re more understanding and thoughtful. I’m pretty sure in some years, I’m totally different from now as I grow up and gain more experiences and become more mature. And it has no shame in it.

I’m only one step away from deleting this blog and it’s so easy for me. I have no attachment to it. I no longer see any purpose to sharing what I think about stuff and I’m certain absolutely nobody cares what I think or experience.

Not that it’s bad. I don’t mean nobody cares so it’s bad, I mean nobody cares as nobody shouldn’t care. Why someone would care at all if I experience some inconveniences or liked something or have some comments on a post someone wrote? If I deleted this blog now, nothing in world would change.

And again, I’m not saying this out of sadness or anything, it’s just a fact. Nothing is special about this blog, I’m just a little human in an infinite universe writing words some other humans can understand. Is it necessary to have a blog or write about stuff or share your ideas? Absolutely not.

However, this blog has something special for me that prevents me from deleting it. That one step away from deleting it is that it made me some amazing friends along the way that I probably couldn’t enjoy their friendship if I wasn’t publishing it. I have the pleasure of talking and communicating with some awesome people because of this blog.

We usually comment on each other posts via email (and other messaging tools) and share our ideas about various topics. I realized I have so much in common with my friends and it’s so satisfactory. I could delete this blog right now. It’s few click away from a static empty page and nobody would get hurt. I would even save time and energy by deleting it but I’m still tempted to make more friends, have more conversations about topics me and my friends are interested in, and have the courtesy of experiencing these joyous human relationships I have.

So again, is it necessary to have a blog or write about various matters? No. Does anyone need it? No. Do I want it? Heck yeah.

Recently, instead of using entrepreneur as a bio, I tend to introduce myself as an engineer. This is because my main job right now isn’t my business, rather is an engineering position in a company. But I was thinking to myself, am I an engineer because I’m practicing it or because I hold a degree?

So if someone has an engineering academic degree but practices medicine or philosophy or maybe is a salesman, is that person still an engineer or not? I’ve been called an engineer even when I was not working an engineering job, so I think people really don’t care about the title, as opposed to doctors who I think really care, but the question remains, is someone with an engineering degree who doesn’t practice, still entitled to be called an engineer?

I know in some places you should get a special license to practice or be called an engineer, and I think it makes sense somehow, but in general, what should we do? Should we call people with an engineering degree (who don’t practice it) an engineer? What about those with experience and those who practice an engineering job but don’t have a related academic degree?

I personally think we should call both engineers. Wikipedia calls engineers “professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets, and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost.” So I think it’s that simple, one who fits in this description is an engineer.

In 1961, the Conference of Engineering Societies of Western Europe and the United States of America defined “professional engineer” as follows:

A professional engineer is competent by virtue of his/her fundamental education and training to apply the scientific method and outlook to the analysis and solution of engineering problems. He/she is able to assume personal responsibility for the development and application of engineering science and knowledge, notably in research, design, construction, manufacturing, superintending, managing, and in the education of the engineer. His/her work is predominantly intellectual and varied and not of a routine mental or physical character. It requires the exercise of original thought and judgment and the ability to supervise the technical and administrative work of others. His/her education will have been such as to make him/her capable of closely and continuously following progress in his/her branch of engineering science by consulting newly published works on a worldwide basis, assimilating such information, and applying it independently. He/she is thus placed in a position to make contributions to the development of engineering science or its applications. His/her education and training will have been such that he/she will have acquired a broad and general appreciation of the engineering sciences as well as thorough insight into the special features of his/her own branch. In due time he/she will be able to give authoritative technical advice and assume responsibility for the direction of important tasks in his/her branch.

(source)

I wonder what majority of people think? And is there such confusion or disagreement in other titles and fields?

It’s been months since I’ve started working my new job and part of it is to check and report from the construction site and I regularly take pictures.

You gotta sacrifice something to get something in return. My boss taught me a life lesson today. We were talking about the wrestling match between Rahman Amouzad and Kiyoota Kotaro in Paris Olympics and how Rahman unbelievably lost the match after dominating all of his previous opponents without losing even one point and he told me something erudite.

He said sometimes you want to prevent losing 2 points and end up losing ten for that. You gotta give the two points and fight for a better position to win.

It’s exactly like that in life. You gotta sacrifice something to get something. It’s just how life works. You gotta give the two points in life so you can continue fighting and getting more. If you stick to the two points, you end up losing everything else.

I love blogging. If you know a little about me or follow this blog, you surely know I don’t use social networks, they’re not built for me, but I love blogging and writing about what matters to me on my blog.

I try my best to keep my blog updated but sometimes it gets hard. It’s not only publishing, the server, the program behind the blog (WordPress), plugins installed on it, and some other stuff, such as the domain, needs to be update and taken care of.

Keeping stuff running may not be hard but publishing and being updated is. It’s not that I write and publish because I have to, but sometimes expressing yourself and finding the right way to publish something on your mind is hard.

I have a lot of stuff on my mind that I want to share with people but most of the times it just won’t make it to the blog. I just don’t find a way to put it here. I can’t find the correct words, the correct format, sometimes the correct source, and sometimes the correct category for what I want to share so time passes and I just let it go.

I’m sometimes tempted to create a social network account and write small posts there. Sometimes I think about creating a small micro-blogging platform on this blog and use that but I know it’ll be temporary and a waste of time and energy.

Sometimes I think about closing this blog. Just delete everything and shut it down. No online presence whatsoever. Last time I did I got a bunch of emails from friends and readers telling me they miss the blog. It was a joyful feeling knowing someone cares about what you publish online and actually reads them.

I don’t use any tracking or analytic program on this blog so I have no idea how many people read my posts. The blog is not commercial and it’s not even reader-based, its sole purpose is to give me a safe space to publish what I want.

Blogging is hard. Writing and publishing while you preserve your own standards is hard. Keeping it updated is hard. But even with all that, blogging, writing, and being a part of this great community of indieweb bloggers is so awesome that it’s absolutely worth it.

This morning I woke up thinking about deleting this blog and letting it go. I thought real hard about destroying my last home online but I needed only one click to open up my blog and take a look at it to stop.

This post supposed to be a goodbye post but it’s not. I only need to start writing again to feel good about what I have here. I’m planning to keep it alive for a long time and I hope I can succeed doing so.