Yep, ASD. We are intelligent. We are perfectionists. We take our sweet time to learn about the world around us. Once we’ve learnt about something, we are quite sure of it, & hence we’re strongly opinioniated on things we know. Stupidity, and not being able to see things correctly may even ‘trigger’ us, & hence we can come across as arrogant. We can see the forest for the trees, but we lose our minds because the rest of the world only sees the trees for the trees.
You sound like someone on the ASD spectrum - honest, principled, not confirming to social norms, overthinking. You had to mask to survive, yes, so obviously there is a facade, but that don’t make you a thief. You are thoughtful & intelligent, & capable of using logic to steer the conversation, but that don’t make you manipulative. You are honest man with morals, how can you not be kind? Why don’t you consider yourself a nice person?
All labels create division, intended or not. There is oneness in all living beings, we know this when we are born, but by the age of 5, we develop our own identity, we see the you & I as separate, the haves & the have nots, & suddenly we have two-ness. Early Eastern religions also taught this.
Here’s the bigger picture - or the self-actualization I have reached - you & I are the universe, on a journey that spans billions of years, we have come alive just for a few decades at most, in a way for the universe to experience itself, & experience we do, but we lack awareness of who we are (one / the universe), what we have (here & now), & what we truly yearn (experience the universe / connect with each other). Everything else is Leela, the most engaging movie or play you ever saw. It is so gripping, we can’t look away, but it’s just a show!
Everything disappears. What remains is that I am the universe, as are you, as are my cats, and everyone else, all alike, all a version of each other, all one, all with just a momentary lifetime of consciousness, some lucky not being bombed. But most live it being consumed by the dance of work & money & religion & relationships & fashion & pop culture & all of the social dogmas like any of that is what life is all about. When I focus & connect with my humanity, I see that none of it is real, all of it is made up, socially agreed upon, maybe even legally encoded depending on situation. The only thing real is here & now. And what we truly yearn is each other’s company, ie. to ‘connect with the universe’.
Hey man, it sounds like you’re burnt out. You need to get out of there so you could reset your base anxiety to normal levels. You really can’t get much done when you’re burnt out & overwhelmed. Lists & time management tools are useless if you’re under duress. Exercise, music, & hugs will help. Take your vitamins. Go for a run. And here’s a virtual hug from me to you. This too shall pass, everything’s gonna be alright. I know easy for me to say.
Absolutely, we all need bread, so we all gotta do what we all gotta do. But that never stopped me from dreaming a few revolutions. Now I just have more time on me :)
I will give you more - I was a capitalist, in that I ran a business, but I might have been the worst capitalist ever, turns out I had too much empathy, I treated my customers & employees as not just humans, but as family, fuck me, am I right?
Speaking of understanding of those systems - I want to share this golden nugget with you and the world - even the most capitalistic of organizations run on the engine of cooperation & excellent teamwork under the hood. In short, cooperation runs the world, competition only ruins it.
Human minds are simple. We understand numbers, but not abstract patterns. We understand temperature, but not weather. If we try to view the world or businesses in just terms of data, we don’t capture / understand the real world. Real world is far too complex & nuanced to be captured with data & numbers. You have number for CAC (cost to acquire customer) but nothing for brand recognition. You have number for LTV (customer lifetime value) but nothing that explains their use case. You have number for customer retention & NPS (net promoter score), but nothing for customer loyalty. You have a number for MAU (monthly active users) but nothing that explains their breakdown or the relative importance of them to your business (for Reddit CEO for example, a top contributor and an AI bot are the same, which is one active user). We can only visualize things that have numbers, graphs, trends, top 10s. Anything that doesn’t have a number associated with it, plays no part in business decision making. It takes wisdom & humility to know the data might not be painting a true picture.
PS: take it from someone who’s been a numbers & data person all their life
Because in the current form of capitalism, the CEOs & leaders at the top cannot correctly prioritize for long term. Their incentive structures (all the way from Wall St analysts down to CEOs & regional directors) are aligned only for quarterly growth metrics, even if they hurt the business less than a year or two later. The CEO gets a bonus for laying off 1000 people thereby making the business leaner & profitable this quarter, who cares about even the next quarter. They are short sighted, which is also clear from the assumption of endless growth from finite resources. I will also say that folks at the top (typically MBAs) are too data obsessed without understanding nuance of their own business model.
Creative people in the Reddit/Lemmy village are the geeks & intellectuals
Somewhere along the way, I learned that for a village to thrive, the creative people (the artisans, the musicians etc) must move in first, they form the roots, then the rest of the village follows them.
The creative people moved from Digg to Reddit. That’s what made Reddit Reddit, not the brand, or the UI, or some genius exec.
The creative people have mass migrated to Lemmy, & hence Lemmy will thrive. How do you know - see where og memes originate. Genius is not the domain of AI, & hence Reddit is Deaddit. We’re now just waiting for the rest to follow.
I will just say it was somewhere between those two extremes, lol
Aw don’t be sorry, their loss really. It’s wild how free I feel, no alarms, no schedules, no daily anxiety, my time is mine & at every moment I’m free to do whatever I want, I wish everyone could feel this way
I was at the lowest points in my life when I sold my business. I wanted an out, I got one, I consider myself lucky compared to the rest who didn’t get an out. Sharks gonna shark & they’ve wronged me by laying me off. I’m not even mad, glad actually to be outta there & free to pursue what I think matters.
Acquired / sold business
When I was in college (a few decades ago), I was quite athletic, but once, I participated in a little marathon. 20 minutes in, I realized this was dumb & just walked back to the starting point. I still remember my thoughts - like why am I chugging along, rattling my entire being, & for what purpose, it’s just boring & pointless. I think with ADHD, we’re always calculating effort applied & reward received, & exercise is hard to justify. I haven’t run for fun ever.
What social utility can programming provide? As long as you are providing labor that is creating value for the system, you are a proletariat. You don’t have to be doing the physical labor yourself, but being in tech also allows you to create positive value for society. You can work for someone & be content with that (I was not), you can try to do your own thing to create value for society (I did/do), & you can try to use your position & wealth to change society / influence the masses (I wish to).
Call me a coward, but I’m more of a problem solver. Within these tinted walls of depression, if I squint really hard, I can see the light in the corner. Yes, I do see the light. Don’t kill yourself, you’re more valuable just being there for your brothers, or better still, helping create the world we all want. We have no choice but to accept the current reality, and live with it every day, but still - keep your chin up, & keep working towards the future you want. #WeRiseTogether
Here & now, here & now, here & now, I chant in my head as that’s all we have.