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Man, I feel you. I'm not an academic, but I'm just feeling out of breath and defeated lately. I grew up loving to build software. Reading programming books, kee

Man, I feel you. I'm not an academic, but I'm just feeling out of breath and defeated lately. I grew up loving to build software. Reading programming books, keeping up with tech. It's the closest thing to work + passion that I think I've ever felt. Joined the military to get out of my hometown. Worked in whatever field I could remotely relate to while I finished my BS:CS. Moved from non-IT fields into whatever IT-related field I could hoping it'd get my resume closer to what I wanted to do. Now I'm just pigeon-holed into some boring bureaucratic IT admin gig with just enough perks to keep me around, and big enough dollar signs to prevent me from starting over in a junior capacity. Then I see all of the discussions from people that don't enjoy development after just a short time, get laid off, etc - and it makes the reality that I'm just destined to rot bored to death for 40hrs a week for the next 25+ years all the more real. I also realize I am extremely fortunate compared to plenty of others, but that "tug" telling me I was destined for much more gets stronger the older I get.

mikub 3y ago
I think that one of the problems of us humans is that we want to accomplish something, we tell our self storys about our self how we should have become that or done that. But in the end it really doesn't matter, even if you were Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman or Marie Curie, in a few billion years none of all the work any human ever did, everything accomplished, won't matter, no one will be here to remember anymore. I think the best one can do is to look at this world with some sort of an observer mindset and be curious about the things happening in this world, try not to judge the things happening, just think "Oh, that's interesting, I wonder why it is like that.". And of course, always try to be friendly to other living beings, even if there might be no afterlife after the end of the universe and you can't trade in your browniepoints anymore, ther is no excuse for making other peoples life worse than it already is. ;)
mattgreenrocks 3y ago
That's the alarm system telling you to wake up and start looking around for a change. For whatever reason, we seem to have a meta-cognitive system that watches for stagnation and creates unease when it is detected. Am convinced that you can't disable it entirely, but you can self-mediate or ignore it. Either route is not great, as you're aware on some level that you're refusing your destiny (of sorts). I think about this quote a lot: "i keep re-encountering with a shock the way that most people do not know, at all, that the problem the entire universe is devoted to, that it crashes us into walls, throws us off cliffs, tortures and murders us to try to solve, is that of escaping local maxima" - https://twitter.com/chaosprime/status/1248861223501942784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=sonyasupposedly.com https://twitter.com/chaosprime/status/1248861223501942784?re... Thus, I'd implore you to stick with the feeling and use it as impetus to change for something new.
spencerflem 3y ago
Incredibly relatable

mikub 3y ago

I think that one of the problems of us humans is that we want to accomplish something, we tell our self storys about our self how we should have become that or done that. But in the end it really doesn't matter, even if you were Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman or Marie Curie, in a few billion years none of all the work any human ever did, everything accomplished, won't matter, no one will be here to remember anymore. I think the best one can do is to look at this world with some sort of an observer mindset and be curious about the things happening in this world, try not to judge the things happening, just think "Oh, that's interesting, I wonder why it is like that.". And of course, always try to be friendly to other living beings, even if there might be no afterlife after the end of the universe and you can't trade in your browniepoints anymore, ther is no excuse for making other peoples life worse than it already is. ;)

mattgreenrocks 3y ago

That's the alarm system telling you to wake up and start looking around for a change. For whatever reason, we seem to have a meta-cognitive system that watches for stagnation and creates unease when it is detected. Am convinced that you can't disable it entirely, but you can self-mediate or ignore it. Either route is not great, as you're aware on some level that you're refusing your destiny (of sorts). I think about this quote a lot: "i keep re-encountering with a shock the way that most people do not know, at all, that the problem the entire universe is devoted to, that it crashes us into walls, throws us off cliffs, tortures and murders us to try to solve, is that of escaping local maxima" - https://twitter.com/chaosprime/status/1248861223501942784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=sonyasupposedly.com https://twitter.com/chaosprime/status/1248861223501942784?re... Thus, I'd implore you to stick with the feeling and use it as impetus to change for something new.

spencerflem 3y ago

Incredibly relatable