Throughout my life, I've been many different people, each with their own mask. Some of these masks were not entirely bad, but none ever felt like they represented who I really was. Despite my apparent youth, I have already lived many completely untraditional lives. I've battled addictions, wrestled with my mental health, and even served prison time. In all this chaos, I have experienced both rock bottom and the top of the mountain. I used to think the way my life had unfolded up to now was normal and common to most people but as I started to venture out of the echo chamber of poor decisions and regrettable actions I had found myself in. I realised my life was anything but normal.
Most teenagers don't sleep rough in a car park alienated from their families. Or get sectioned and taken to mental hospitals across the country. They don't get drawn into the drug game due to a feeling of necessity. But what the average teenager does felt foreign to me. Part of me feels as though I missed out. I didn't get to have the exploration that comes with a safe space to mature in. I had to mature fast and in full to survive. Yet, despite that I am grateful for the experiences (no matter how bad they may have been) as they shaped the way I look at the world and how I figure my place in it.
From rough sleeping to jet skiing along the coasts of Dubai. From giving away all I had, to having more than I could ever need. It's been a wild ride, for sure. I've often said that I've packed enough into my one life to fill several lifetimes. And it's in those several lifetimes that I have accumulated a somewhat unique perspective on life, or at least an interesting tint on the glasses through which I view the world around me.
It took a while and a lot of hard work to pull myself out of the depths of the pit I had dug myself into but every step I took away from my old life and towards something new, something better, was a step I was determined to take. Truthfully it was my time in prison where I grew from a boy into a man, and matured mentally. I had been forced to mature quickly out of necessity but I had in all honesty not done so in the true sense of the word.
In prison, I discovered that I love to learn. Or more accurately, I rediscovered my passion for learning. Whatever the subject is, I can dig my teeth into it. First, it was Theology and Religious texts, then expanding into Philosophy, then Maths. Surprisingly without a computer, I dived into the realm of computer science. With no means by which to practice or explore these new concepts, that I was exploring in-depth, I found a love for Computing behind a cell door. I had my brother printing out Wikipedia pages of words and concepts I had never heard of. He would send them to me, only for me to ask for even more after reading them and finding something new I did not know of. I learned the inner workings of Bitcoin, UTXOs, the EVM, and Solidity from books and couldn't wait to get behind a computer. I was fascinated but the way money worked and the potential that decentralised finance could bring to the seemingly fragile and deceptive system I was learning about through a great number of books available to me at the time.
So with the chaos and calamity firmly in the past, I feel as if I am genuinely living an entirely new life. The differences are too much to count but each is a blessing in its own right and I am thankful to even be here now, let alone finally free from a life wrought with pain at every junction. However, as free from my past as I may feel I am always conscious of the time I spent in prison, where I matured mentally and became the man I am now, through will and determination.
After being released, a new man with drive and determination, and spirit in abundance. I got to learning more and more. Reading the classics from the world of Philosophy; 20th-century classical literature and of course finally putting fingers on a keyboard and immersing myself in code. Algorithms, Data Structures, Design Patterns, Cryptography, Distributed and Low-level systems I couldn't get enough. I am still as keen and eager to expand what is possible for me, I am keen to discover the limits of the new lease on life I have been given and then surpass them all the same. I have learned that a life without learning, with no curiosity, at least for me, leads to nothing good. But a curious mind and an eager spirit of determination can take you places you would never have imagined possible.
So, now I am here writing the whistle-stop-tour of an introduction to who I am. I opened by saying something I say a lot: 'I have been many different people' but to expand upon this slogan. I have never been more thankful to be who I am now. To keep this introduction from being too long I will end with a set of subjects I intend to write about here for my own sake:
I am sure I will be writing on some of these subjects soon.
Till next time,
Harry (h5law)