I recently took a course on Frontend Masters — JavaScript: The Hard Parts, v2. This course made me realize how little I truly understood JavaScript.

I’ve been building web apps with JavaScript “professionally” as a backend engineer for a while now. I’ve gotten to a point where setting up new projects or making changes to existing ones feels almost effortless — the kind of stuff that used to scare me early on.

But maybe that’s exactly the problem. I stopped getting curious.

Back when I was just starting out, when I knew so little, I was desperate to understand it all. How Node works under the hood. What promises really are. What’s the deal with “this”. I’d question anything I could. And I loved it.

These days? I mostly do what I need to do — and move on. I don’t think much about what’s happening behind the scenes. Maybe it’s the “professional” mindset kicking in. Or maybe somewhere along the way, I started losing the sense of play that got me into this field in the first place.

I came across this course through a blog post. I don’t remember what blog it was, but the course seemed interesting. I was on my semester break, had plenty of free time — so I decided to take it. And I’m so glad I did.

Because taking this course made me realize how much I didn’t know — even though I use most of this stuff every day.

And honestly, that’s okay. Not knowing isn’t the problem. What matters is the curiosity. The urge to dig deeper, to play around, to ask “why” even when things seem to work fine.

That’s how I grew in the beginning. That’s what got me hooked.

Somewhere along the way, I lost that.

So, what I aim for in the days to come is to be more curious — to find time, now and then, to question what I know and how things actually work. To check if I really understand it, or if it’s just muscle memory getting me by.

Because this — this urge to dig deeper — is what keeps the craft alive.

It’s how we grow. It’s how we keep learning. And maybe most importantly, it’s what keeps the joy alive.

And I don’t want to lose that again.

(Originally published on https://www.sauravdhakal.com.np)