For the first time, I added an organ to a person…

git commit -m "Adding grapesjs-navbar"
git push origin adding-navbar

Of course, I’m not saying I just performed surgery. If we treat an app or system as a human, and the code or functions as its organs…

I’ve just submitted the first pull request of my life. It might sound trivial, but it truly means a lot to me.

In reality, my pull request barely added anything to the project. It’s so minuscule that only 3 files were changed, and 2 of them are package.json files. What I did was add a GrapesJS plugin (grapesjs-navbar) to the editor. It’s a navbar component that allows users to drop a pre-designed responsive navbar onto their canvas. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I essentially assembled two existing components.

If it’s really so insignificant, why does it mean so much to me? I’ve always been a well-behaved student, consistently following school rules, which can make me seem decorous (perhaps boring). However, this changes when I’m online or working with electronics. For some enigmatic reason, I naturally treat the internet as a liberal space – not in the sense that we can do whatever we want, but that we can gain full control over what we have.

Having the ability to control every single aspect of myself is, in my perspective, the true definition of liberty. Some might argue, “Don’t you already have full control over yourself?”

As Rousseau once said:

“Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”

There are restrictions everywhere in our lives, often subtle and unnoticed. For instance, people tell you that you have to have good scores, you have to be good at sport, you have to know an instrument or have some habits in art, etc in order to get into a good college. In that case, I have the risk of lost my control over my time, my effort, and even my habits.