Various Musings

 Got a few things floating around in the ol' noggin, so I figured I'd type them out here.

The last month has been... eventful.

Since losing my job I had gotten into a routine. Wake up, fix breakfast, work on some labs for Burp Suite and learn more about what's essentially hacking.

And then my brother's fiancee died.

She had been dealing with kidney disease the entire time I knew here. Was on dialysis. But she was on the list for a kidney transplant, had done that bariatric surgery to help her lose weight in preparation, and then in the last couple of months had been in and out of the hospital far too many times.

It had reminded the both of us far too much of when Mom was dealing with cancer, which is why they went ahead and set a wedding date. 

Not just because they wanted to get married, but also for the legal aspects (no FMLA for a live in girlfriend, but it would have been there for a wife) and so that he wouldn't essentially be a widower without the legal aspect.

We had thought we'd have longer... one of those hospital trips they had said her potassium was too low (something that had happend with Mom too, one of the times she wound up in a hospital) but the day my brother texted that they were using a crash cart she actually had too much potassium.

Anyways, he's a teacher and was on spring break last week, so in order to make sure he didn't have too much time alone I went up for the funeral and stuck around most of that week. Which disrupted my training routine, but was worth it.

Now I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, but...

Well.

I keep seeing all the articles in the news about the wrecking ball of our current administration, and I find myself thinking again about why and how I got where I am. And how I'd always been interested in public policy. About how much I had cared about this nation. And suddenly learning how to hack just... doesn't quite fit.

Except I still have to pay the bills. I mean, I'm good for now, but I will need to have some (hopefully stable) source of income before too long. And there were reasons I'd essentially stepped away from public policy.

Mostly the dawning realization that I'd probably need a whole lot of money to do the sorts of things I'd want to, and that I apparently am not so good at selling the idea of hiring me for anything like that as I would need to be.

Now? I don't know... I feel a bit adrift, and maybe typing things out here will help.

I still really like the idea of finding some way to financial freedom without being tied to yet another rigid bureaucracy. Making that work is the trick though. Sitting around waiting for a miracle to happen is just - not realistic. 

And I find myself thinking, at least somewhat, about the society we have made and how much it sucks.

Let's go back to what I was saying about fear. I've heard the belief, for example, that some people think we need people to be afraid of not being able to make ends meet in order to motivate them to do the jobs we need done.

I say bullshit. I don't know how many people truly believe it, or whether the powers-that-be really calculate things like that (and other things, too. Like deciding an educated population is a bad idea and making higher education more expensive, and various other things). It's possible? But feels a bit too much like believing there's some coordinated effort by wealthy men sitting around in smoke filled rooms deliberately choosing to make other people miserable just to maintain their power. Like - who is actually sitting in these rooms? Do they truly believe that crap? Is it just a way of making them feel special and elite so that they can look down on all the hard working people struggling just to get by?

It doesn't make sense from a talent perspective, tbh. I mean, when we look at the studies of flow and performance and whatnot - people do best when they are challenged and having fun. They will put in 200%, will step up and identify and fix things of their own volition, will be motivated in a way that doesn't happen when you're a corporate drone working in a soul-sucking environment where you're just a cog in some bureaucratic wheel.

On a more personal level...

I suppose I'm more internally then externally motivated. Always wanted to be my best self. If you think of the difference between someone motivated by fear and one motivated by fulfillment, I have always wanted more of the latter. I think that would lead to being that best self, and I'm curious about who that person would be. I'd really like to meet her.

That's part of why I made a promise to myself, when I went to college. Way back then I knew that I could do well in this society we made. I do well in school environments, I'm a good employee, and it's not that hard to 'fit in'. Going to college just seemed like the natural next step in the path laid out for people like me.

But I didn't want to follow it just because it was normal and natural, I wanted to do it because I really wanted to be there. 

So I made sure that every class I took was one I was truly interested in.

It helps that I'm naturally curious, that my interests allowed me to find classes that fit the graduation requirements and sated that curiosity. Oceanography for science, that class on human rationality for the math requirement (which did cover logic and other things, though not quite the same way as we did in discrete math since it actually looked at the many ways we aren't logical). Other classes that shaped my thinking and that I still appreciate even today.

But somehow things never quite worked out how I expected at the time, and one thing or another happened, and here I am. Older than I want to admit and with quite a few major career changes under my belt, and although I did well at my last job it was a bit too much like my fears when I went to college that first time.

Taking the convenient and 'safe' path to pay the bills, and not really following up on my genuine interests.

Hacking... to be honest I never really wanted to be a hacker. Being a blue team defender was appealing, and understanding how they hack is interesting and I've been enjoying the Burp Suite labs quite a bit. But most of those skills seem to lean more towards penetration tester or bug bounty hunter (i.e. a white hat hacker) then really helping use that knowledge to make things better.

Perhaps I should focus more on certifications that would let me find a job there. (Though there are far too many to choose from, and figuring out which to focus on... )

Well. Not really want I want to delve into right now. Besides, answering that might matter from the 'find a source of stable income' perspective, but they do nothing to address what Trump and his wrecking crew are doing to this nation.

What still feels strange is how... partisan things are. There are many people who see the same problems I do. Who are upset and talking about the various decisions, and the dangers unleashed. Deporting a US citizen, punishing dissidents, threatening to withhold aid from states that don't sufficiently kiss the ring.

And yet those who support Trump don't see it, and we're all stuck with the perennial question of - do they not see it because they're blind? Or because they know and are okay with dismantling everything America used to stand for? Gullible fools or cynical enablers?

And how did we wind up with so many of them, anyway?

More importantly - what do we do about it?

I think things are going to get worse before they get better. After all, even if people like me are horrified by how much damage has been done in the last couple of months, it still doesn't seem to have seeped into the public consciousness. And nobody seems to have successfully stopped the madness.

It doesn't help that the Trump administration is so chaotic. Are they truly going to risk a war with Canada? Or Greenland? Or is it just bluster and hot air (and trade war tariffs?)

Incompetence or malevolence? Or incompetent malevolence?

And what can one not-politically-connected person like myself even do about it? My congressional representatives so far seem to be doing the right things, so I don't necessary feel like I need to call up their offices and extort them to do anything different. I would say differently to anyone in a red district, but we here are pretty much blue across the board.

I do try to throw the occasional article into my social media feed. I have some online friends who are conservative, and I worry that they only get their news from like-minded people, and just aren't aware. But I doubt it makes that much of a difference, and I also don't want to spam my feed too much. Really, social media is not the best place for nuanced and in depth discussion of complicated topics anyway. It's better to have those discussions at things like the family Thanksgiving, or some other activity where people don't automatically label disagreement as 'libtards' or 'rethuglicans' and accept that both parties genuinely want what's best for America. (The number of times I have seen some short and quick meme that is... so simplified and incomplete that it's just plain wrong, and yet I know trying to explain why in more depth is not going to go over well... sigh.)

The problems seem so much larger than me, and require persuading people who have no reason to listen...

Again. Sigh.

Which makes me fallback on all that religious upbringing, and think a bit about faith.

There must be a way. I do think 'when God closes a door, He opens a window'. Or something like that. 

I mean, I do have to do my part. I can't just sit back and somehow expect things to fall in my lap. No savior is somehow going to miraculously decide to give me the resources I'd need to truly make a difference, and tbh I'm not interested in becoming an organizer who devotes their life to a specific cause. Unless that cause is 'make America live up to its potential, for all Americans'.

A bit too large and unwieldy to truly focus on, unless I can somehow become an eccentric billionaire. (Oh, the things I could do with that! Too bad it's wasted on fools that just keep making things worse.)

Well, accumulating massive wealth had never truly been my motivator, so that would probably take a miracle too.

Faith...

Maybe, if I keep myself open and keep looking, I'll see the path forward.

I hope I do before too much longer.