4 ms·

In the past what has helped me is exploring the 'techy' area of something I see all the time but never stopped to consider how it works under the hood. A great

In the past what has helped me is exploring the 'techy' area of something I see all the time but never stopped to consider how it works under the hood. A great example is music and music software. If you begin exploring sound, synthesis, filters, etc. there is a huge world just waiting to be discovered. Hours and hours of fun - very easy to find that "where did the last 3 hours just go?" feeling. You could also look outside the tech industry and go into something else you care about as the person who is an exception for being technical. If you have 10 years experience you can do a lot of good and help many people for whom computers are still scary and mysterious black boxes (remember, this is the overwhelming majority of humans currently alive on Planet Earth). Wish you good luck!

Existenceblinks 4y ago
> you can do a lot of good and help many people I'm thinking this is the direction I'm trying to figure out because I feel great when people say "thank you" to my effort-less help. (I don't love intentional activity like volunteer. I super love when it's accidental, less thinking, me suddenly happened to be helpful)
- bawolff 4y ago
  I sometimes answer people's questions on the support forum for an open source project i am involved with. It can feel really nice to help people solve whatever problem they are having. If there is a niche you are knowlegable about, i definitely reccomend it.
incanus77 4y ago
Big plus on this. Twenty years into a pure software career and feeling largely uninspired, generally trying to work as high in the stack as possible (first LAMP admin, then Mac/iOS software, then specifically in developer tools / graphics rendering) I got into hardware and how these amazing machines actually turn code & binary into action. Now I'm obsessed with it and working on a physical product where my software skills are a huge boost.

Existenceblinks 4y ago

> you can do a lot of good and help many people I'm thinking this is the direction I'm trying to figure out because I feel great when people say "thank you" to my effort-less help. (I don't love intentional activity like volunteer. I super love when it's accidental, less thinking, me suddenly happened to be helpful)

bawolff 4y ago
I sometimes answer people's questions on the support forum for an open source project i am involved with. It can feel really nice to help people solve whatever problem they are having. If there is a niche you are knowlegable about, i definitely reccomend it.

incanus77 4y ago

Big plus on this. Twenty years into a pure software career and feeling largely uninspired, generally trying to work as high in the stack as possible (first LAMP admin, then Mac/iOS software, then specifically in developer tools / graphics rendering) I got into hardware and how these amazing machines actually turn code & binary into action. Now I'm obsessed with it and working on a physical product where my software skills are a huge boost.