When I was starting out, I remember diving into VBA and Excel with excitement, often hopping from one idea to another without a clear direction. I explored functions, formulas, and small scripts, sometimes feeling like I was doing something important, but in reality, I was scattering my energy. Looking back, I see it now as a natural stage of growth — the phase before learning that true mastery isn’t about doing more from scratch, but about learning to see what already exists and using it wisely.
Over time, I discovered the elegance hidden within the tools we already have. In Excel, for example, it’s remarkable how a careful combination of existing functions can produce higher-level “special functions,” without ever touching VBA. Take the time to think, arrange, and layer these functions thoughtfully, and almost no spot is missed. Each function’s output overlaps with others in what I like to call fringing patterns — a kind of interference of logic where the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
This principle extends beyond spreadsheets. It’s a reflection of how the coarse and fine interact in the world. The coarse does not only emerge from the fine; the fine tunings themselves shape the coarse. Arrangements of general patterns can give rise to specifics, just as polynomials can approximate trigonometric functions like sine, or how sine itself can be decomposed into polynomials via Fourier series. In both cases, thoughtful arrangements of simpler elements give rise to intricate structures and behaviors.
Ultimately, what I’ve learned is this: mastery isn’t about inventing something entirely new at every turn. It’s about recognizing the depth already present in the building blocks around you, arranging them with care, and letting emergent patterns do the work. When you approach problems this way — whether in Excel, programming, or life — you begin to see that the world, in all its complexity, is not chaos. It’s a canvas for thoughtful arrangement, a playground for patterns, and a theatre for the emergence of greatness.
