Drowning

I hate job hunting.

I hate the doubt that creeps in. The worry.

Not just the stress of 'will I find a job before my money runs out?' but the fear of failure - and worse, that it'll be my own fault.

That I'm not as good as I think I am. That other people are out there tracking down recruiters and creating GitHub repos and mastering the GCIH cert and polishing up their resumes with AI and getting calls and interviews and everything...

And that I'm failing, not because I'm not capable, but because somehow I really struggle with creating that AI ready resume. And I do kind of enjoy coding, but I just... don't really code just to code. I need a project, an idea. And generally not just 'here's my take on the exact same thing that's been coded by people much more experienced and capable than I am'. Like, I'd want it to be something useful that I couldn't just use someone else's code for.

Why spend all that time doing something that's been done already? Multiple times even? Why re-invent the wheel?

But then the projects that do interest me look like they'd mean going down a rabbit hole that... I'm not really sure I have the resources to go down. By which I mean I need something that will pay the bills, which also means hunting for that thing that will pay the bills, and if the project is going to eat up too much of my time then it either has to have a good return on investment or it risks making it even harder to pay the bills.

If I didn't have to worry about the necessities of life, then all those calculations would change. But I do, and I know how I get when I'm hyperfocused on coding something, and I don't think I can really afford that right now. (Except, ironically, that could be the thing that draws attention and gets me a job... so maybe I should?)

In case it's not obvious by now, I am illustrating just how hard it is to decide where to allocate my time and efforts.

On top of which...

On top of which, every time I see the news or scroll through social media and see posts about current events, I can't help wondering if I'm focusing on the wrong thing entirely.

Trump and all the fools enabling him are probably the biggest issue right now, and I don't really like ignoring it.

Except what can I do, really? What can I do - that will also lead to my being able to pay the bills?

Maybe I should head up to Chicago for some of the ICE protests. Except... I've also seen people from the area discouraging that? Like, on the one hand we want enough protestors to make it clear things are not okay. But on the other hand we don't really want to help create the justification for Trump to escalate things even more.

I don't know. It's also pretty far from here, and would also take time that isn't being used to, you know, job hunt.

I have been thinking about that especially hard lately, because I've had a few interesting engagements on social media with the conservative uncle I've mentioned before.

I am - not sure how much he truly wants to hear things. I know we all have a tendency to close our minds, to hear each other only so that we can prepare arguments to refute them rather than an open mind trying to understand. I sometimes think it's counterproductive to try to explain when someone doesn't want to hear it, so I may post all about something here but will try not to bore you in person (if we ever met.)

But if someone genuinely asks? Or just asks, perhaps not so genuinely? Things will never change if I fail to take that opportunity.

Anyways, he had asked for our 'belief origin story', and although I have plenty of other beliefs I stuck with the Jan 6th spiel because I genuinely think it's the most pressing issue in our democracy today.

It took a while to get a response, but when he did respond he mentioned that he didn't think my beliefs had only settled by then, and that I must have had earlier experiences.

Which was completely true, though even the things I chose to respond to that post with are only a fraction of them. I mean, my beliefs have been shaped by what... three decades now? More than that if I count younger experiences, but let's start with college. 

My experiences doing ROTC at a midwestern liberal arts school while studying political science, then joining the Army. Deploying to Iraq, getting out. Going back. Coming home and staying local while Mom battled cancer, studying public affairs. Not finding a damn job with that at all. Going to Afghanistan. Leaving all the military and military adjacent stuff and going completely into the private sector as a shipping supervisor. Shipping. Deciding it wasn't for me and going back to school for Computer Science. Stumbling into DevOps. And now... searching for my entry role into cybersecurity.

All of it has shaped my beliefs. Most of it involved quite a bit more research and studying than just listening to whoever is on the news, or seeing memes on social media.

But most of it is too long and boring to tell people who don't really care. So I post it here and engage when someone seems genuinely interested, and so I gave some long responses that were still just a fraction of an answer.

He has not responded yet, so who knows how he's taking it. But - there is a part of me that feels like that sort of engagement could be even more important than the job hunt.

I mean... it can't be, right? I need to pay the goddamn bills. And it's not like I have the reach to engage with enough people to genuinely make a difference, right?

But anything that helps burst this bubble of support for the current situation is a good thing. I can be like that little rock that forces the carriage to jump out of its ruts.

I don't see how I could do that and make a living though. I blog enough about it all here and I'm well aware that it's all probably tl;dr for this day and age. 

No cutesie videos or engaging podcast either. You're stuck reading my ramblings with whatever the hell I want to ramble on about, and it's definitely not popular enough to make a difference in our escalating political divisions.

But just feeling that impetus to do something makes me wonder if I shouldn't restrict my job hunt to just the cybersecurity roles I'm looking for.

Maybe try to get some use out of that Public Administration degree. But... nah. I didn't have any luck back then, why would it change now?

sigh

I really have no idea what I'm doing anymore.