Steven is my best friend ever. We met at HSNU. We were close, but not that close until I dropped out of college and came back to Taipei. With nothing on my schedule, I started to learn driving. Steven had nothing going on either, since he just broke up with his girlfriend. That gave me a perfect excuse to ask him out as my shotgun rider. That's how it all began.

Our first drives together stayed within Taipei. But as time went on, driving alone wasn’t enough, and the city started to feel too small for us. So we decided to try something new: exploring nature. That’s how our journey began. Over the past couple of years, we’ve wandered all around Taiwan, from its mountains and rivers to its wild hot springs.

Nature started to bring me to every single spot of Taiwan. During those trips, I met a lot of people from different backgrounds, cultures and countries, who shared so many valuable conversations with me.

I spent 7 months on a working holiday and traveling through the U.S. and Canada. Meeting locals and travelers all around the world really introduced me to cultures and lifestyles I had only heard about from other people. The experience taught me it's okay to be naive, because there will always be things you don't know.

At the end of my journey in the U.S., I stopped by San Francisco to visit one of my best friends, who worked at Oracle. I got to see what working from home looked like to him. The idea of only talking to his own computer, with no contact with colleagues really appealed me.

After coming back to Taiwan, I started learning how to code by talking tons of online courses, which were not actually necessary.

While learning to code online, I became immersed in the idea of building things from scratch. Even though I didn't yet have the skills to build anything truly satisfying, I loved the process.

After 5 months learning, I got my first software engineer job at a startup. Struggled and Fucked up everything, Felt I was a complete failure. Lost confidence.

A book rearranged something inside me. It rebuilt my mental model, how I saw human behaviors and the way I thought about the world.

I was first introduced to Acquired and obsessed with the companies' stories. Ben and David's storytelling always drew me in. I would never feel tired in their company. Their voices alone were enough to make the hours disappear.

Chakra UI was my first real contribution of open sources. It was so fun to meet people from different countries just for the mission we shared.

Building a dating app with my friends. The app stayed in a prototype.

Steven had been climbing full-time for years, and he was bored out of his mind. It wasn't the mountain. It was the routine: up, down, up, down, always the same method. He began to wonder if there was a more creative way to do the mountain trip and then pack rafting came to his mind. Pack rafting is a style of backcountry travel that combines hiking with paddling. You carry a deflated raft in the backpack, hike up to the mountain and paddle downstream. He introduced me the sport and we spent the rest of the year practicing.

During a pack rafting practice session, the boat flipped and Steven disappeared immediately, even though he was wearing a life jacket. It all happened too fast that we never saw where the current carried him. We spent the next half hour searching but founding nothing. Unwillingly, we admitted the situation was beyond what we could handle. We called the police for help.

We couldn't find him until two months later.

We had been to that river many times. My boat also capsized at the very spot more than once. So why hadn't I been sucked under the water hole? Why wasn't I the body lying there? Why hadn't I been the one who left the world? Why am I still alive? I had no answer.

Steven's death left a huge hole in me. I had been so sure of how the world worked and where I was headed. Suddenly, everything collapsed. I realized I knew nothing of what I thought I knew. It was like someone had burst in, smashed my brain open, and told me to rethink everything from beginning. Nobody understood the feeling. I felt like I was standing alone on an island where no one else was.

"What was Steven's last word? It was Blublublublublu."

I desperately needed something to cling to, a piece of driftwood to keep me from drowning in the tragedy, so I joined Autopass. Work became a refuge from grief. I wouldn't let myself think about Steven at all. I couldn't bear to look at the photo we had taken together or even the Instagram post I had written about him.

I met talented people, learned how the operation of a business worked and started to feel inching to start my own project.

For two years, I didn't let myself think about Steven. Slowly, I started to allow it. I reread the posts I had written and took out the pictures we had taken together. I went back into nature, too. Maybe nature had finally welcomed me back, or I had finally made peace with myself.

It's okay that nobody really understands me. It's okay that no one walks beside me. It's also okay that I wander the world on my own. I just want to see the world in my own way.