Once Upon a Time, Writing Code Was Fun

I’m one of those developers who’s had the privilege of writing code by hand in its rawest form, the kind who wrote every line by hand. No copilots. No prompts. Just raw logic, caffeine, and a blinking cursor. And I’m glad I did. I used to write code for work, in my free time, when I was stressed, when I was happy, In my dreams, I still write code. I did it because creating something, fixing issues, building systems... it was fun. That feeling of fulfillment when you’d step back, look at what you built, and think: I’m a genius. I did that. Back then, you weren’t just assembling components, you were constructing mental models. Every function passed through layers of thought. You traced edge cases before they existed and simulated failure before production ever had the chance to surprise you. Every bug you fixed made you sharper. You didn’t just write code. You forged it. We can still do that today. The difference is: we don’t have to. I remember one time I've built a complex component I