It is the beginning of the sixth week since my departure at my last company. Among all my applications in search for work, I have had one company call me back for interviews, and they have since cut me from consideration. This isn’t a post to plea for understanding as much as it is a bookmark in the passage of time. Instead of twiddling my thumbs, spinning my wheels, and running in circles, I’m making the decision this week to teach myself Linux (Fedora), since it’s an observably common trend in a lot of the postings I’m looking at. It fills the time while I wait for the 95% of my empty day on callbacks and follow ups, and provides me with an opportunity to learn another skillset that will complement my growing toolbox.
I’m reluctant to be always positive these days, since the circumstance has a grim reality: my former colleagues are now competition in a market that is discarding their quality people for “cost effective” operations. Technology–a lucrative market with the reputation of rampant growth–is now becoming a fragile ecosystem with no security for anyone: you’re either expendable because you’re not good enough at what you do, or you are too expensive to keep. The only ones seemingly not effected are executive leaders, the same people who make poor strategic decisions that result in the primary workforce in losing staff. The social networking aspect of professional operations is…. well, I believe the best phrase I can use is “shitshow”. Executive leaders that want to be influencers post daily, or more, about the importance of decision making, the importance of not losing hope, the importance of perseverance in the face of adversity, and so on. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” These people want to exude the greatness of character like Lincoln, but how many of them know that he never said such a thing? It reminds me of the people that call themselves Ahab, looking for their White Wale. Clearly, they never read the book, or know how that story ends.
Every day, I feel more and more surrounded by an atmosphere of people who tell you that it’s important to strive for betterment, but also to know your place. Your place is to cater those so far above you, they will stain their clothes with your ashes when you die. Because it’s fashionable to look poor. Being poor is a lifestyle too expensive to commit to. People are dying in countries that citizens here (US) never heard of because for every war that makes a headline, there’s a dozen more unseen. Children dying in schools barely make the headlines anymore, or the news at all. The world is on fire and the compassion fatigue is so rampant that the only people saying anything are the people trying to sell you something to make a profit on the tragedy. Cue the dramatic irony of studio executives.
Movies, television, games, books, and all these other forms of artistic narration have this ability to pull you away from the real world for a moment. They come off as distraction from your daily routine, but they offer a glimpse of the world through a different lens. The post-apocalypse isn’t a warning of the future, it’s a commentary on the current state of affairs (unless you were Chuck Wendig in 2019; check out Wanderers).
But all of this going on, with my own circumstances just reminds me of a gem from 2012, Asura’s Wrath. While on his journey of revenge and rescue of his daughter, Asura fells the Seven Deities who wronged him, and one, Kalrow, tries to explain the betterment of the world in his absence. How the world would become a paradise, absent of opposing forces trying to perpetuate turmoil, all at the cost and literal sacrifice of Asura’s child. It is that perpetual ethical equation, sacrifice the few for the good of the many. Out here, the world turns and burns, the little people bleed for the mighty so they can build mega yachts and destroy history for kicks and giggles. They advance in technology to remove the human in the arts and minimize business costs, while raising prices to further increase their profits, while expecting the people they just threw into the wind to pay for things that can’t afford, like food and shelter. The many are sacrificed for the few, and the one thing that comes to mind, burned into my brain since I first heard those words from Asura before crushing another “deity” to death:
“I grow tired of hearing about the world.”
Aberrant Arcade 