Review of 2024
There were many events that unfolded this year that it would be hard to keep track of without looking back from the beginning of 2024.
Q1 was normal, nothing great besides not meeting the expectations of last year, which was mostly what I got preoccupied with. At the end of last year, I met some resolutions that would work towards getting my mind off of said expectations.
I have been programming since 2016. That is nearly a decade, if you round it off. Perhaps less professionally, but regardless a long time that I've been exploring my interests. Other activities that sparked my interest may have not entirely been at my disposal so it's best to do with what you have.
Q2 and Q3 were weird.
I needed to get back at employment and so figured I'd apply to various positions that were, according to my experience, the right roles. Except that none of that worked. Canonical, Amazon, GitHub, Microsoft, hundreds of other co's and dozens of rounds of interviews. We're not even talking about titles, not even junior roles would be available. Coincidental?
Previously, I was myself. Maybe that didn't work out so I had to not be myself. Unsurprisingly, it worked, except that recruiters would be discerningly aggressive when they would inquire about my previous work, as if I had any reason to not be myself, which wasn't a concern to them either way, as was apparent.
At some point, one such recruiter was hiring for an extremely basic JavaScript role and found it convenient to demand for an IQ test by viciously disguising it as a small quiz. To be clear, there are absolutely no ethical boundaries in most American companies when it comes to hiring, yet they find it plausible to judge individuals who aim to work conditionally with a temporary permit, citing how the US always has non-replaceable talent. If so, then why concern oneself with foreign talent? Why play the open card and claim to hire regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, veteran status, geographical location, ethnicity, religion, et cetera?
In multiple other cases, there were roles where I was given a task, and once it was time for the technical assessment, they'd assign me many unrelated tasks, we're talking entirely complete systems issued out explicitly as unpaid tasks. I instantly knew that this was some cheap trick that they'd use to undercompensate and overburden or perhaps an elaborate ploy to claim intellectual property, so I didn't really bother playing along.
What's worse is that most individuals who may relate to this in the wrong way are, in fact, pretentious. There is no point in being double-faced whilst convincing oneself of self-righteousness.
I'm tired of everything.
You see, here's the thing. There are just too many people on this planet as of today. Everywhere I go, there are people. Every corner, every crevice and it's just viscerally disturbing. I don't need to pull up Kaczynski's controversial works to prove that these figures need to regress, if by any means not as a nihilistic approach at reforming socio-economic problems of this scale.
In the current world as it is, there are limited resources which degrade proportionally with this inexplicable exponential population growth of depressed and braindead people who aimlessly reproduce without questioning their mortal existence, ever since the Industrial Revolution. We are only going downwards from this point henceforth.
What does that have to do with anything?
It's entirely relevant, that's what it has to do. Every single activity of a kind that may or may not be of interest to you is broadly affected by this conundrum.
Out of the time I spent, most was in hope of change, not actually bringing about change in a way that was physically feasible. There surely can't be a reason that any normal person be subjected to incapacity at an existential level. Many other folks I know, particularly work colleagues have at some point been conversing about this exact same issue. Will we ever recover from career instability? Will we ever be able to explain the gap in our résumés?
Intersectionalism is real.
I am usually not the complaining kind of individual, neither do I like opening up, but I'm already underprivileged—by virtue of mentioning. Roughly 2 years ago, I was doing theology-related studies, albeit informally but on track to acquiring formal recognition. However, for whatever reason, I was convinced that this whole programming thingy would actually be a solid start for a professional career, before which I only did so as a recreational activity.
I already can't attend workshops, conferences and for reasons related to bureaucracy which directly reflect on my abilities as a programmer. Lacking the capacity to apply for mentorship programs is debilitating to acquiring skills. Whatever is described thus far does not relate to an incapacity to endure the process or the notion of rejection which seems to be a growing issue in this generation.
Programming is a profession, not an art. Like every other profession, it is profoundly bound to realistic expectations and not whimsical intuition.
I will always appreciate opening up an editor, the sound of typing on a mechanical keyboard, debugging, sketching out algorithm designs and other fun aspects of programming.
What others typically do when odds are not in their favor is begging, i.e. going on public channels instead of grinding and proving their professional worth. It will never ever cross my mind to stoop to such a level, in fact, no human being should ever be so worried to the extent where they publicly humiliate themselves by begging HRs and recruiters who are likely not even humans.
At this point, it's all just a waste of energy and time. I genuinely didn't gain anything from any of this, not a single step forward besides the fact that for the past 3-4 months I've completely lost my sleep from chronic insomnia and would feel miserable everyday by trying to advance my understanding of other niche areas (e.g. compilers, graphics, et al)—in lieu of mainstream subjects that could potentially help fix this imminent insecurity that plagued the market, per sources.
I'm already at risk of renal failure according to my recent MRI scans, which isn't entirely a great prospect for any 23 year old with no merit beyond a high school diploma.
As such, I'll spend the remaining ~2 weeks re-evaluating my priorities so as to get back to living a normal life for the rest of my preallocated time in this ephemeral world rather than entertaining this rigged system. I wish you the best if you've read till this point.