Tag: tech

110a – unhappy with the world

It’s only ten days into February but already a lot seems to have happened. Y and I celebrated a year of being together and that was super fun. We both ended up making a lot of hand-made gifts etc so it was really nice to be involved with all that for a few whole days. On 4th though we ended up consuming a very high dosage of cbd/thc edibles which led to an incredibly terrible experience, albeit a major learning one. 

I just realised yesterday that it’s such a privilege to have even a few people who read this regularly. I was thinking about a friend of mine who genuinely reads most of my posts and it feels so nice to be seen and known. I feel like if I talk about a thing ten times it also makes it so clear to the people I know how I really feel about said thing. I suppose it can be hard to remember sometimes but this blog helps really drive some points home. 

Ooh, I finally decided to go ahead and book the damn flights to the US. Despite the dread, I am super excited to see my sis and my nephew! I’ll plan ahead a bit this time and attempt to make the flights more bearable, but let’s see. 

I’ve been playing a lot of Colonist lately (again) but it seems like I may have lost my edge— I’m losing a lot, lol. 

I’d like to get back to work sometime soon, the financial anxiety keeps eating at me. But I’m not a 100% sure  if I’m like desperate enough to do “anything” or whether I still have preferences about what kind of work I want to do. I think, the latter.. but then the financial anxiety eats at me too. 

It feels like everyone who’s in tech just wants to do AI related things, and I feel like I just can’t get myself to be onboard with it. Everything about AI related tools and hacks and solutions goes against the core of what I like— ie enjoying the process, enjoying the micro-work. How are people enjoying this? What is this all about? I don’t get it. Why is productivity and efficiency and optimisation the goal? I mean I get it, I kind of do, of course if you’re a business you’d want to increase efficiency and optimisation, but ugh.. I don’t “really” get it. I suppose I just don’t vibe with capitalism anymore. (Or late stage capitalism, as some people have told me, which is the version of capitalism that has completely ruined some of our lives). 

There’s very few companies that I can actually see myself working for, everything else is just something I can’t get onboard with, yet. I hate the idea of “marketing myself”, I absolutely hate it. Perhaps this means that I should focus on skill building so that eventually I can start something of my own. If it’s mine, I can run it the way I want, and perhaps I’ll even see the benefits of AI, then. 

Sorry, this got quite venty, though I’m pleased, because sometimes I don’t vent enough because there’s a part of me that feels the urge to do “research” before I vent. But then that stops me from expressing any thoughts and opinions at all. So, yeah. There it is: I detest late-stage capitalism, the current job market and more than everything else, I detest what AI seems to be doing to the world. 

Hope y’all are well, xx 

037b – priorities and restrictions 

My conflict with work and what I want to be doing (for work) has gotten stronger since around a month. I tried some product work for a few weeks which unfortunately made me realise that’s not an option that’s much better than my current (engineering) role. And since I’d told myself that I’ll try out as much as I can in tech itself before deciding whether or not to jump ship, the realisation has been (mildly) unwelcome. I think I was hoping to like this more, in which case I wouldn’t have had to go through a harder process of potentially switching fields.

But the reason I started writing this today is the thought around “focus”. I’ve been wanting to buy a keyboard (piano) for a while because I’d started learning it around a year ago, but when I moved I didn’t bring it with me, and until now I haven’t had the free time to really think about this. But I recently realised that I’ve been pushing off buying one because lately I’ve started caring more about being focused. Because I’ve been thinking that if I do want to pursue any form of art as a career, shouldn’t I be focused towards it? But then.. I think, if pursuing art as a career means restricting myself in all these ways, is it even worth it?

Of course, my “focus” assumption could be wrong. Or the way I’m going about it. I probably need to talk to actual people who’re pursuing art to know more about this. Ie whether they find themselves restricting themselves in some ways in order to be focused with their job / career. But if the assumption isn’t wild, then it’s worth taking a step back.

I think freelancing (where you get to experiment with different kinds of jobs from time to time) would be really cool. Of course, at a cost – potentially, conventional success (??) but maybe that’s a cost I might be okay with. 

Anyway, I just realised I haven’t posted for over a month but writing right now made me feel good. It’s good to have some of the things that almost always feel nice, helpful and safe.

Some updates since I last shared a post:

  • Finally had a first session with a new therapist (scheduling was being an absolute pain) and I like her so I’m going to do a few more sessions. But so glad that this is kicking off again. I haven’t had a regular therapist since February and it’s been well, not ideal.
  • Recently started getting into painting a little bit and it’s been a blast. Thoroughly enjoying it.
  • Winters hasn’t completely taken over yet and I’m so grateful, hoping for a similar trend throughout November. 

Anyway that’s all folks. If you have advice related to my career confusions, let me have it! 

003 – work and the “corporate world”

I’ve been feeling terribly stressed at work. It’s been a few months, and I haven’t quit yet. Multiple reasons for it of course – the pandemic, lack of a plan, visa issues, the effort of team-switching, the fear and possibility of quitting but still feeling equally bad about life and of course, sunk-cost. 

As I contemplate, I of course think about what changed over the last (almost) 8 years. I’m pretty sure I never loved programming, but I never disliked it as much as I seem to be doing these days. I suppose I always saw programming as a means to an end and the ends aren’t exciting anymore. 

The ends at the time were “solving cool tech problems” and maybe a “successful career in tech”, or so I told myself. But they were also 

  • money, 
  • prestige, 
  • communal, societal and familial validation and 
  • this general, vague, weird idea of success. 

Well – I have those things now – so the external motivators are gone. Of course, I hope there was some sort of intrinsic motivator of wanting to be good at whatever I do, but it seems like that’s not enough (anymore). 

So, the pandemic really did bring a bunch of shit to the forefront.

There’s a part of me which wonders how I ended up here. Well, my upbringing, of course. I’m sure there’s people who knew they weren’t cut out for this. But I didn’t. And maybe I could have been. But I don’t feel it anymore. 

I spoke to my sister-in-law recently about all of this and as I started talking along the lines of “well I’m not sure, maybe I don’t need to derive joy out of my work?” and she, very strongly, disagreed. And I’ve been speaking to a few people about this, and I’ve received strong opinions on both sides of this, and I’m still very impressionable, so I keep swinging. (Side-rant about how kids can be so impressionable, how does one navigate the danger of imprinting a false belief in a child’s mind?)

But then I think about what else I could do instead. I’ve been playing around with the idea of writing and/or photography. Those are the two things I’ve enjoyed in the last few years as my hobbies. And I do really enjoy both the activities – of course I don’t know whether I can get paid for those or not, and I don’t know whether I have the skills to even consider those options (and here’s the funny part – i’m really scared of the answer to both of these questions being “no”). But the longer I don’t quit my current job, the longer I’m putting of really seeking the answers to these questions.

I have a few thoughts about writing. I finally started these word-vomits, just as a test to see whether I can even write. And the idea currently is that we concentrate on quantity, not quality. (Because we know that generally works). But what happens once that’s done? What happens once I do write a 100 word-vomits? I’m supposed to increase my goal. I think I’m already scared that I’m not going to want to go further. What if I’d done everything right, and still failed? What if I’d gotten that writing degree, and still failed? I guess it doesn’t matter.

People often say there is no end to introspection. If that’s the case, a 100 word-vomits should be pretty easy. If not, it’ll be cool to have gotten everything off my chest.

Just checked my word count on this. I’ve been noticing a pattern. I’m able to get to 500-600 words on pretty much anything that I care about, pretty easily. How do I get to a 1000 words though? At some point it might start feeling forced to the reader. But the whole point of this project is to not worry about the reader. I find that I’m worrying about the quality again. I guess this what they call practice? Maybe after a few of these, I’ll be able to get to 700-800 words more easily. Feeling a little bit of excitement about maybe reaching that point. But I worry – if it’s the same thing happening again. I have a goal in mind, I’m writing to get to that goal. What happens when (or if) I don’t care about that goal anymore? I suppose I have to give myself the freedom to set potentially meaningless goals, even if they don’t result in anything. That’s what’s hard about life. To come back to the present, again and again and again. It’s kind of a meditation, I suppose.

My word-count tool just told me that the reading level on this is “9th-10th grade”. Oops. Well, I should change my tool. I’m not looking for judgement yet. I only need to focus on quantity.

I find this “stream of consciousness” style of writing very interesting. I can’t think of anything else that can capture something in such a raw manner? I can’t imagine a self-portrait which captures someone clicking (or painting) that self-portrait.

I’m noticing how my mood can affect the structure of a word vomit as well. I have a couple of these that are super clear, logical and structured. And I have a couple which are pretty all over the place. Might just call them public journal entries. And maybe that’s okay, I don’t really want to think about whether these might benefit anyone else. I can just think about the benefits I might reap from these. Maybe I’ll feel interesting things at the end of a 100,000 words. Maybe I won’t.

But I am also enjoying how thinking about wanting to write a few more words does not stress me out. I am just observing. And it’s easy to observe, it’s an inbuilt ability in humans, I believe. I am an ornithologist and my thoughts are like migratory seagulls. I am a scientist and my sinking heart is Newton’s falling apple. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero.