I spent a good part of my home quarantine the last couple of weeks learning more coding with CSS and HTML. It seemed like a good idea. Now I know more.

I decided it was important because I wanted to do more than tweak my site. I wanted to make it really mine. Since I use Genesis for WordPress, I started by making a bran new child theme from scratch. (If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry. You’re not missing much.)

Then I started working off of the Sample Theme. I started to make a basic starter theme into one that is more mine.

Of course, that felt like cheating. Even though it is normal. And literally what they tell you to do. So I turned back to the one I started and couldn’t really get off the ground.

I went back and forth multiple times.

Then I started playing with Full Site Editing and the Gutenberg plugin. (Again, if you don’t know, don’t worry about it. If you want to know, click the link and follow the rabbit hole…)

And while I don’t have a new finished theme, for the first time, I’m having fun just playing. I’m making something. I’ve always liked that. But I’m also not stressing about the finished product. Play is really play.

As I play, I find clarity.

Then I picked up my plans for a podcast again. I wrote up three more episodes and want at least 8 ready before recording, editing, and producing. It all seems much closer to reality than ever before. I expect I can be ready by Advent if I work at it.

This also set an obvious sort-of-deadline for a site redo. Synergy.

I got the writing bug again.

Maybe it was the looking at other websites. Perhaps it was realizing how inconsistent my writing habits were over the last year. Maybe it was simply the creativity of play. Or all of the above.

Learning had me creating.
Creating had me playing.
Playing had me reading.
Reading had me writing.

It all seems connected.

It reminds me that random is not what we think it is.

Imagine trying to make a picture that depicts randomness. Something like the night sky.

You start to put stars on the page one, then another, and another. All spread out. They start to look like a pattern. Rigid.

For a picture to look random, you have to put things next to each other. Otherwise it looks ordered. Random can’t allow for equal separation. So, in other words, to make something seem random, you have to program out the possibility that distance can actually be equal.

To make something random, you have to order it.

True randomness isn’t random. It actually provides connection.