Timing of the article is impeccable. I've devoted my life work on fractal logic and calculating with structures, spanning 4 disciplines and two dozen discoveri

Timing of the article is impeccable. I've devoted my life work on fractal logic and calculating with structures, spanning 4 disciplines and two dozen discoveries. One of the many opportunities it gives is transforming hash functions, making it possible to calculate the inverse. This week the first production version was unveiled, which should have solved all the problems the prototype encountered. DES was selected as first example. All the components passed successfully. Only... self-modifying recursive structures behave in mysterious ways, and apparently differently than expected. It was a self financed project and I literally bet everything (wife, house, money) on a single horse which didn't win. I started hacking computers with the Commodore PET (1977) and worked with micros, minis and mainframes, spanning from firmware to operating systems/developer tools and 9 years of computer science education. I am turning 59 next week, have no recent job history or network and it feels like I just dropped out of school. Putting Optimal Quitting into practice. I just started: accepting the loss and letting go. It feels weird. Energy levels and sleep have drastically changed. Next step: deciding to return to the rat-race keeping the expertise or quitting everything and walk a different path, after all, this is the last phase of my professional life.