Does the title even make sense? At the time of writing this, the blog doesn’t even have a fixed title yet. Right now if I look up there I see “Looking up the Stairs”, but that may not be the case for you.

This is the first thing I wrote in this blog post. I wrote it while I was still idealizing the blog. Meanwhile, the title has become fixed… or at least a tad more set in stone since I’m currently paying for the domain¹ (and a .com domain at that!).

So what is this obsession with stairs? I’ll start by saying that the stairs weren’t the starting point. I just wanted to have a blog, where I could write and share stuff. This to me is an odd desire since I’m living in a XXI century battle of not wanting to share my life away on social networks… a battle I’m actually winning! But to have a blog, I figured I needed to have a theme so I could make it aesthetically pleasing - it’s all about “the vibes”. To be honest, if I had to do it on an old Blogspot website, I don’t think I would really be doing it.

So what is this obsession with stairs? I’m getting to it, I promise. The theme had to be something generic, I’m a software engineer (at least by day ²), so if I had named it “The Last Byte” or “Caution! FrAGILE”, the expectation would be that I would be making posts about software engineering, C++, Agile, debugging, … Which I don’t think I’m qualified to do. Right now you must be thinking, did I just stumble upon a blog about stair building? stair appraising? stair… philosophy? Not quite.

So what is this obsession with stairs? When I was in college, around March of 2021 I had an idea. An idea for an app (don’t click away please). An idea for a habit-tracking app. The app would have a 3D representation of a set of stairs, and as the days went by, and habits were completed, the users would move up the steps of said stairs. The app would be 3D so that you could get an actual visualization of how far your goal is, but also of how far you’ve come, I wanted to make it real! Your friends could leave messages on the steps, encouraging you (or at least that’s the goal) and it would give you a further incentive to reach those steps (you can only see the messages if you actually reach them). Next up, Silicon Valley!

… OK so here is where the stairs concept was born. However, since me and my friends were already neck deep in college projects we decided to do our Beta Alpha testing using a simplified version of the app: using Google Sheets.

Far away from a 3D lap, the first test run of the stairs concept happened in Google Sheets.

We envisioned stairs to be 30-day long, and for the first habits/challenges we chose daily cold showers and workouts. We all started at the bottom of the stairs (some courageously remained there until the end), and each day climbed one step. In the end, only me and my friend Manuel ³ reached the top of the stairs, and it felt good, 3D app and 2D spreadsheet alike.

During the following months, we started a bunch of new stairs, some successful, some not. Here are some notable mentions:

• Listen to an album each day (the top 30 from Anthony Fantano’s 2021 picks)
• Do a drawing every day
• Don’t go to YouTube or Twitch
• Meditation (this one I failed)
• Another album pool, this time with suggestions from every participant

Unfortunately, the habit of completing these stairs about habits (habit-ception) did not stick. However, the idea of the stairs stuck with me, and I chose to keep it as a central theme of this blog because it embodies my journey through life…

I sometimes look back (or down the stairs) and see how far I’ve come.

I see all the steps I left behind and the people who took those steps with me.

I see people that stayed down there, and a few who have joined me since.

I see steps that looked like the top, and steps that felt like starting all over again.

I see steps that felt like going down. I see steps that felt like ramps.

I see steps I wish I could climb again and steps that should stay down there.

I know there are steps I don’t see anymore, but I know they’re there because I’m here.

I see myself in each of those steps. Someone who I no longer am.

I look down and I can’t see the first step.

Since I can’t see the first step, I must look up.

I also don’t see the final step, but I must reach it.

One step at a time until no more steps are ahead of me.

Will there ever be such a day?

What will I see that I can’t see yet?

Are the larger steps still to come?

Who has yet to join me?

Who will stay behind?

Who will be there with me when I climb the final step?

So many steps, and here I stand

Looking up the stairs