I’ve been going through a bit of a depression & introspection journey for the last little bit as relates to my inability to find another tech job. For a while I’ve been posting both my observations on and rants about corpo culture and all the while bemoaning the fact that I can’t get a job in that culture. So when someone on Mastodon pointed this out to me as well as the fact that “I don’t know you in real life, but you seem like a negative person”, that was a bit of a wake-up call.
I don’t want to be (or be seen as) a negative person. What I thought I was doing was exposing the hypocrisy of The Industry while hopefully getting people to commiserate with and “there, there” me but it turns out that what I was really doing was just exposing the dichotomy within myself. Basically, I was coming to the realization that I never actually thought that not finding a job would happen to me, being forced to face the fact that yes, indeed, it is happening to me, and doing it all out there in the public eye by virtue of my inability to keep things to myself and not overshare.
So I guess I have become a negative and contradictory person in response to internalizing that realization. Well, shit.
As a result I’ve gone back to thinking about who I really am, what makes me me, and figure out a new way in which to pay my bills and live on. Tech has defined me for the majority of my life, but what else could I do or what things am I really passionate about that might indicate some alternate jobs that I could do.
Let’s Talk About UBI (Yes, Again)
What I really want to do is help people. I’m not particularly picky about what that is, as long as it is helping human beings as opposed to helping corpos make money or exploit other human beings for their own gain. I guess at this stage in the game, I want to do work that is meaningful and useful to people (not just as consumers). I want to make people’s lives better.
And this is where the notion of Universal Basic Income (UBI), or its sister concept, Guaranteed Minimum Wage (GMW), comes into play. If UBI were in play, then what that would mean for me is that I could choose any job that I am able to do because I’m not worried about attaining a certain basic salary level for food, housing, and medical care. As long as I could physically do the work and it met my “lifestyle demands” (i.e. no swing or graveyard shift, travel requirements, etc.), I could go do any job that had an opening or go get the training required to get it (or upskill into a new career). As long as I could physically do the work, I could be a cashier or a bagger at a grocery store, work in a fast-food restaurant, be a street worker, a barista, a book store, the library, do things that are traditionally “volunteer” or non-paid work, and yes, even been a greeter at Wal-Mart if they needed one.
Now I realize that my perception of the benefits of UBI and GMW are slightly different than most because I’ve already had the majority of a career, I’ve still got some savings, and I have a house that is almost paid off which I will then own outright. I know that there’s a lot of people reading this that aren’t in that place, and so I wanted to acknowledge that. From my perspective, I tend to see UBI as the equivalent of Social Security but without the age requirement and a mandated amount that isn’t variable or based on how much each individual has contributed to the system.
The benefits that this has for everyone is that every job and the people who work them have more dignity, a baseline for societal equity is laid down, people are then free to do any job that they want to do (and get the skills required to fill that position), or even have times when they’re not working for whatever reason and are able to live on or are satisfied with their UBI. It’s this last one that I’ll talk about in a minute that is the reason for me bringing up UBI again.
Most importantly, it allows people the time to figure out what it is that they either enjoy doing or are willing to do without having to be stuck in a job (or multiple jobs) that they hate just because that’s the only way that they are going to pay for their basic necessities. And it allows people the time they need to figure out what it is that they want to turn into a career.
So Who Are You, Then?
And here we come to the $64,000 question and the crux of the matter: after 18 months, I still don’t know. And since we don’t have either UBI or GMW in this country, as well as being firmly in the grip of end-stage capitalism where “pay to play” is the main mantra, the pressure of getting money to pay my expenses with while not spending all of my remaining retirement savings before I’m actually able to draw my Social Security “UBI” puts me in a state of panic that I don’t have the time to find out. This is only exacerbated by the fact that the current US administration is doing everything they can to ensure that I won’t have any Social Security to get by the time I’m eligible for it, but that’s a topic for a whole other essay. And the capitalist system has made it so that taking “just any job” is nearly impossible and actually can be more damaging to people than not having a job. It’s insane.
Ah, there’s that existential depression again. Not going down that route today. Back to the original question: who am I?
I do still love technology and coding - using it, building things myself, helping to build things with others for the good of my friends and society. I just mainly dislike the omnipresent “monetization” of same that capitalism imposes upon it and all the associated mess that comes with it - “market forces”, deadlines, IPOs, the grind, the dehumanization, the commoditization, etc. I still like learning new things and putting them into use, but I’m also not a person that has a lot of project ideas, so hearing about others’ ideas and collaborating with them or liking something enough to get involved in maintaining it or using it is quite enjoyable.
I also enjoy writing (hence this little garden here) but I’ve never had any formal training beyond standard high school or college English courses. I also read a lot of books, graphic novels, etc. so I very much enjoy the written word. Along with my desire to help people, I do enjoy explaining things or teaching some subject matter. I’ve thought about trying to transition into technical writing, journalism of some sort, or technical instruction or teaching, but pretty much all of those things would require me to get certifications or degrees which I do not have.
I enjoy psychology and how the human mind works. I love solving puzzles and mysteries, and I enjoy watching crime shows, whodunits, documentaries, and mysteries because I’m fascinated by the mind. In fact, I was so enamored with my freshman Psych 101 class in college that I almost switched my major, but went with Comp. Sci. instead. I also really enjoy counseling and coaching people, listening to them, and helping them talk through their issues in hopes of a resolution. But, similar to writing above, making a switch into this field would require at least certifications if not university coursework, for which I currently do not have the money or time to devote to the study (as opposed to searching for a paying job).
Along with that, I’m a spiritual person who is interested in various discussions about religions, philosophies, symbology, and the differences/similarities between them. I wouldn’t call myself a typically religious person, mainly because I am a Christian yet have deep and serious disagreements with the American Church in their implementations and practices, but I do still personally believe and practice my spiritual beliefs within the confines of my own person. I always enjoy a good philosophical debate.
Music has always been a big part of my life. I play drums, have been in a couple of bands, but never anything even approaching “professionally”. I can also sing and I used to play clarinet way, way back in the Dark Ages of high school. And I’m always - ALWAYS - listening to music (pretty much anything but Country & Western).
And of course, like many people, I love movies and visual media. I can have (and have had) discussions for hours about specific films or franchises, and I really appreciate the art of good film making, directing, visual composition, and writing. That being said, I have no training or experience in any of those fields myself. I enjoy critiquing things, but I know nothing about actually making said films and how to make good ones.
I like fast cars, beautiful cars, and the technology that makes them go. I also feel the same way about aircraft, despite the many distasteful uses for military aircraft. However, I wouldn’t say I’m mechanically inclined, mainly because I just have no training and have never been one to do it myself when it comes to any repairs other than changing tires.
I guess the last major part of my personality is my lifelong dedication to martial arts, specifically and primarily Okinawan Shorin-ryu karate (in various flavors). I started karate training when I was in 8th grade and have been doing it ever since. Sure, there have been some breaks in between - sometimes years - but it always seems to be a constant that I return to after some amount of time. I have enough experience to have my own school, and my sensei has said that I teach well, and there are several folks in my current federation that would like to see me running a school. I’m fine with teaching under somebody in their dojo, but I have never wanted to own or be responsible for my own school. It’s hard to make a living solely as a martial arts instructor when one is on their own as I am. A supplemental income would be required to offset the initial costs (and rent here is freakin’ expensive!) until the school becomes self-sustainable and profitable, if it ever does. And since I’ve always trained in traditional methods and would teach that way, I have no desire to own or run a “McDojo” that just churns out “black belts” in order to be profitable for the owner to live on. Capitalism strikes again!
Still No Answer
Even after writing out all those things that make up “me”, I still don’t have an answer on what to do next. I do see a fair amount of excuses, I will admit. Unfortunately, that still doesn’t help me see what I can do about them in order to move forward. I guess I mainly just wrote them down for future reference, to come back and look at in the future, and see if maybe one of them sparks some interest or flashes of inspiration down the road a tiny bit as my situation changes (or becomes more desperate).
I still can’t help but think about how much a UBI would make it possible for me to try each and every one of those things I listed above and see if I could make them work without the fear of crashing and burning and ending up in more debt than I was when I started. I’ve seen the aftermath of what that did to my parents who got caught in that cycle, and I wouldn’t wish that kind of tension, pressure, and depression on anyone.
