Hidden Carousels

I came across an issue while working on a freelance project where my client wanted to create some collapsed drawers that would expand when you clicked on on the Call To Action (CTA) button. This wasn’t very difficult and was some straightforward JavaScript until I hid the expandable content by setting display: none in the CSS.

Normally, this isn’t an issue with most content, but in my case the content was mainly comprised of carousels. Here’s the thing about carousels: They need some time to figure out what their dimensions are when the page is loading. But if you set display: none, then the content is taken out of the flow of the DOM. So when the user attempts to expand the hidden content, they’re shown a garbled mess for more than a few seconds until the carousel renders itself properly.

So how can we fix this issue?

First, we’re going to want to set the CSS of the content as so:

.hiddenContent {
    position: absolute;
    top: -3000px;
}

This takes our carousel out of the flow of the document and puts it really far up the page so that it doesn’t get shown to the user.

Next, in our JavaScript, we’re going to need to do two things:

1. Update the CSS of our content so it’s in the correct position.
2. Set a boolean that will change the display of the hidden content to display: none when the CTA is clicked. This will allow us to use jQuery’s toggleSlider function without having to write our own.

So here’s a basic toggle function that will slide our hidden content out with the CTA is clicked:

slideContent = function() {
    $('cta-btn').on('click', function() {
        $('.hiddenContent').slideToggle(800);
    });
};

Now let’s add our flag that will run when the CTA button is clicked along with the CSS fix for the position.

slideContent = function() {
    var reset = true;
    if(reset) {
        $('.hiddenContent').css({
            'position': 'relative',
            'top': 'initial'
        });
    }

    $('cta-btn').on('click', function() {
        $('.hiddenContent').slideToggle(800);
    });
};

One thing to note here: We’re setting this boolean flag so that this will only run one time after the CTA button is clicked. We don’t need (nor want) to keep updating the CSS after the first click.

So if you were to try and expand your hidden content right now, you’ll probably find it’s somewhat buggy. This is because jQuery’s slideToggle works by changing the display property of an element. Since we’re not changing the display of our content, the initial value is set to block (or whatever property you’re using).

This means that slideToggle is actually attempting to collapse your already collapsed content!

We need to go back and add one more line to our JavaScript.

slideContent = function() {
    var reset = true;
    if(reset) {
        $('.hiddenContent').css({
            'position': 'relative',
            'top': 'initial',
            'display': 'none'
        });
    }

    $('cta-btn').on('click', function() {
        $('.hiddenContent').slideToggle(800);
    });
};

By adding display: none to our one-time reset code, slideToggle now correctly expands the collapsed content.

Now you might be thinking, “Why are we changing the display to none? Wasn’t that the big problem from the start?!”

Well, yes and no. The issue wasn’t setting display: none, it was the carousel needed time to render properly. Since we’re not initially setting display: none on our carousels when the page loads and instead just moving them out of sight, they’re able to load properly in the background. After this, we can safely set display: none because they’re fully rendered. In fact, we have to, otherwise slideToggle won’t even work properly.

So there you have it. I don’t know if this is the best way to get around this issue with carousels, but it’s a fairly simple one that worked for me. Here’s the CSS and JavaScript all together:

CSS

.hiddenContent {
    position: absolute;
    top: -3000px;
}

JavaScript

slideContent = function() {
    var reset = true;
    if(reset) {
        $('.hiddenContent').css({
            'position': 'relative',
            'top': 'initial',
            'display': 'none'
        });
    }

    $('cta-btn').on('click', function() {
        $('.hiddenContent').slideToggle(800);
    });
};

Hope this helped!

Reflections on 26

If you missed the last 2 years, you can find them here :)

• Reflections on 24
• Reflections on 25

So you’re 27 now. I think this might be the first year that wasn’t noticeably better than the last. Every year has its challenges, but that’s usually an opportunity to grow and become better. It doesn’t really feel like that’s what happened this time around though. Don’t get me wrong, you definitely learned things. But you learned them first hand through cold, hard experience.

You hardened up this year. That tireless patience you’ve been honing all of your life was tested almost daily and quite frankly you’re burned out. This year was difficult on two levels, personal and societal.

I wish I could say that things will get better, but I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet. I think things are going to continue to get worse for a time until they improve, but I am honestly questioning if we’ll be able to reach the turning point peacefully or not.

Let’s start from the beginning.

---

So around this time last year, you were packing up your life and making the move out west. You’ve had a California mindset for a long time and to finally be moving there is a great feeling. Being surrounded by like minded people is comforting, almost intoxicating. It’s a hard thing to pull away from, which is what people are calling echo chambers right now. But moving to Long Beach honestly felt like going home, right from the beginning.

I cannot stress how much I freaking love Long Beach.

The diversity of the people and the culture they bring with them. The immensely walkable Downtown/East Village. The almost absurd friendliness of the people. And of course, you can’t beat that great California weather. At the risk of throwing shade at my friends in San Francisco, it feels like a better version of it (don’t hate me!)

It feels good to finally be somewhere where your community actually seems to care. As much as I love Atlanta, it always felt like no one seemed to care about the city. And that made it difficult for me to care in turn. But it’s obvious that the people here are interested in building a better life for not just for themselves but for everyone around them.

You’ll finally get rid of your car after 10 months when your parents visit and drive it back to ATL. To say it’s liberating is an understatement. Let’s try and see how long we can go without getting another one.

The new job is great at the start, but over time you realize that you have no future here. It became clear over the year that the people in power are more interested in keeping what little power they have over their subordinates than actually working together to build a better world, or even a better company for that matter. They like their underlings to be mindless sheep who do as their told and not ask too many questions.

To mindlessly follow is something that you’ve never be able to do. You’ve always welcomed people who challenge you to be better, and in turn you challenge them back. But when it feels like most of the people who are supposed to be pushing you to grow aren’t interested in doing the same themselves, the dynamic just leads to resentment from both sides. They’re probably frustrated by my unwillingness to do work without understanding why and how we’re doing what we do, and I’m frustrated by the apathy, incompetence, and lack of communication being displayed by people who are supposed to be my superiors not only in title but in skill and knowledge.

You stuck it out in the hopes that things would get better over time, but they never did and they only got worse. From January to August, 50 hour weeks turned into 60 which turned into 70 which turned into 80. You were initially ok with the extra hours, partially because you were told it was temporary (this was naive and too trusting of you) and partially because you were able to visit friends around the country on the weekends. But as the hours expected of you continued to climb, the weekend trips stopped happening. Saturdays were just another weekday, and Sundays were eaten up in transit between North Dakota and California. It’s hard to take even weekend trips when almost every waking hour of your life has been stolen for the company.

In fact, you stopped making any future plans altogether. It was near impossible because your project manager was terrible at his job and failed to communicate any sort of project timeline to the entirety of the team (I believe the Leads might have known more, but then even they seemed clueless half the time). But of course, you were expected to drop anything and everything on a whim. How can you plan a trip for 2 weeks from now when you could end up being strong-armed into working the day of your hypothetical trip?

You did manage to get a week off in March to travel to Europe. This only took two months of forewarning and asking your PM every week for approval, which he finally approved 3 weeks before the trip. Thanks for costing me $400+ in just plane tickets alone, asshole, all because you can’t plan ahead that far (let’s not even talk about how a large portion of your job is literally just making long-term plans). Barcelona and Amsterdam you’ve already seen and they were great to re-experience with friends you hadn’t gone with before (shout out to Brian, Daniel, and Syneva). But the real experience for you was the solo trip to Iceland. Your first time traveling alone was a little scary, but well worth it. Also meeting up with another friend who was in Iceland at the same time as you was a surreal experience (s/o to Casey). You learned things about yourself and are now more confident for your next solo excursion.

You were able to get in a few weekend trips before things got out of control at work. Being able to see Leah, Casey (different Casey), and Jasmine after a few years away from college and Charlie for the first time was awesome! And of course, the weekend of your parent’s anniversary, Daniel’s birthday (different Daniel), and seeing Mansi in the hospital was crazy hectic but well worth it. Unfortunately, around this time the hours became too much and you had to stop taking these trips. You just wanted to be in Long Beach alone for a weekend so you could not be a stressed wreck for the next grueling week of work.

Depression surfaced once more. Last year it was from a lack of work, this year from too much. You finally got taken off the project at the beginning of August, and you’re still working too much, but at least you’re working on things you want to now. Tough it out, you can do it and you’ll be better for it.

Your health really took a dive this year. When the only things you really have time for are working, eating, and sleeping, it’s not surprising. That chest pain you’ve been carrying around for months and haven’t been able to see a doctor for still? Who cares as long as the project is going well. Still need to get those wisdom teeth pulled too, but taking a week off to recover from that was out of the question since the project would have suffered. That extra 20 pounds you put on in 4 months should be on display proudly as a trophy representing the millions of dollars you made for your superiors. Crapitalism is great, y’all!

I think you would have been OK with all of this if you at least got paid overtime. But you’re salaried and when the rest of your team fails to speak up alongside you about the 16 hour work days, you end up looking like the crazy person making a fuss over nothing. I have to stop and ask: what is exactly crazy about working the 8 hours (give or take a few here and there) that you signed up for? Never fall for this again. If a company insists on working you to death, you will at the very least be paid well in the future.

You considered actually taking this to HR and maybe even higher court to fight for the lost wages. But friends advised that this move is not great for the long term, because other companies will be wary to hire someone who tried to basically sue their last company. It’s a catch-22. You either do the right thing and get what you’re rightfully owed, or you save your own skin because trying to fight a corporation is impossible in the US (and possibly the world?). There is no justice in the world, only survivors.

As unfortunate as it is, it might be time to start compromising on your morals to get ahead. Everyone else is lying and cheating their way to the top so you might as well join them, if only to actually be in a position of power to make real and lasting changes to the status quo. Hell, even Mom said that sometimes you have to do some rotten things to get ahead in life. It feels wrong but it might be the only way to avoid being left behind from being too idealistic about how things should work and people should behave. It’s how you avoid getting beheaded like Ned Stark.

---

Pretty pessimistic so far right? There’s still more sad stuff to talk about, but not all can be put into written form at this time. Partially because of the sensitive nature of the topics (some very interesting personal developments between your friend groups and yourself). Partially because it’s become impossible to talk about things without offending people in some way these days. And I’m not even talking about using overtly “bad” words that we all know shouldn’t be used. People lost their shit over my use of using “men beating their wives” as an example of something terrible. Here’s the problem: when you can’t even accurately describe terrible things, you can’t have a discourse around those topics. If you can’t talk about these things, you will never be able to solve these problems and these horrible things will continue to happen. All because you lack the constitution to stomach a discussion of the awful things that humans do. But by all means, if you need your safe space to get through your day, please remove yourself from the conversation and get out of the way so the rest of us can get to work making the world a better place.

Read that whole post, it’s not long, but if you insist on not doing so, here is the relevant bit:

“If you intend to interact with the world outside your door, you do not get emotional safe spaces, because the world is not even a remotely physical safe space, and demanding that it provide an emotional safe space is a form of extremist privilege. At best, it is denial and avoidance; at worst, it is political chicanery, trying to shut down the discussion before it’s begun.

You are not safe. You were doomed the moment you were conceived. And you’re not going to feel safe or happy for all of the time you have left, be it eighty years or eighty seconds. The idea that you could is absurd; the idea that you should is offensive. It might be a salvageable concept if you’ve spent your life waging total war against every injustice served to every other human. You have not. You cannot even meaningfully try.”

In short, get over yourself.

---

That all started with the election of course. I won’t waste my time going into the details of my opinions on this past year in an attempt to justify myself to internet strangers, but I do want to have a record of my thoughts and feelings a year after living in a post-truth society. Here’s what you, anonymous reader, needs to know about me: I’m an unapologetic Bernie-Bro who thinks that the DNC screwed him out of an easy win against Trump or even Hillary running as a Republican (if you think she’s a Democrat, you’re misinformed).

I don’t think there was a single major platform I disagreed with him on. Did I think that everything he promised would happen? Of course not. I am naive at times, but I’m not completely stupid. But taking steps in the right direction, even if it is to just tread water against a Republican majority Congress, is the right thing to do. Sweeping the underlying issues of our government under the rug through Hillary would have been terrible. As for Trump, I don’t need to speak about his idiocy and evil since even a large portion of those who voted for him are finally snapping out of his trance.

I’m glad that our generation is finally starting to care about politics again. Make no mistake, this is only possible because Trump got elected. The better option would have been Bernie, since he also inspired a large number of our generation to get involved, but I’ll take Trump over Hillary. We don’t need any more corporate bought politicians in office, but if it had to be Trump at least he’s dumb enough to make the big wigs lives’ as shitty as they’ve been making the general population’s for decades now. Hillary would have been 4 to 8 more years of complacency and the illusion of progress. With Trump, we have to stare directly at ourselves and say “We did this. Now how can we make sure this never happens again?”

A lot of my left leaning friends will try to distance themselves from this responsibility. But you can’t, because we’re the educated elite and it is our duty to help those who are less fortunate than us. You should know better than to give in to your lizard brain and think purely with emotion like those who voted Trump into office. Those uneducated masses did what they thought was their best chance to improve their lives, and to put the blame on them is cowardice. If you fail to see that, I question your commitment of empathy, tolerance, and equality for all. Being ignorant, misinformed, fearful, and having terrible ideas on race, gender, religion, etc. does not mean that you should be exiled from the rest of our society. All humans deserve a chance at life, even the shitty ones.

This is not me being apologetic or sympathetic to these people. If they choose to wilfully remain ignorant or insist on inciting violence to the rest of us, then by all means I am in favor of letting these stubborn fools die out slowly or forceful retaliation if deemed necessary. Pacifism is not an option right now, but escalating immediately to violence is also wrong. Violence in self defense is the only acceptable form, and until you’ve exhausted all the other options it should ideally not even come to that.

I’m idealistic enough for Universal Basic Income and Artificial Intelligence and Automation to catapult humanity into a peaceful, space exploring super-utopia one day. I’m realistic enough that I know that this future is decades or centuries away and will be a hard fought victory for those who are left after the bloodshed. Make no mistake, there will be war. The older I get, the more solidified my belief becomes that most humans are too selfish and lazy to strive for the ideals that they think they stand for.

But in the meantime, it seems like the focus is on survival. Trying to get by as a reasonable, rational moderate these days is hard. And the worst part is that you’re not even a moderate, you’re just not a radical leftist. It’s incredible how intolerant the left has become to people like you (there are dozens of us! DOZENS!) - those who stand for all of the same ideals and values but don’t think that punching Nazis is the best way to achieve our long-term goals. You’re either exactly like them or you’re labeled as an enemy, which is just the other side of the same, fascist coin.

There are many things that I’d like to have a discourse on from this year that I’m actually too afraid to write down from fear of some militant leftist starting an online crusade against me because I choose to treat all people (especially the worst of us) as humans. Maybe I can tolerate racists and sexists and bigots because that’s what I’ve had to do my entire life.

Because that is life. You cannot avoid these people so you have to figure out how to effectively deal with them that works for you. Avoidance is not an option unless you never want to leave your home again. But good luck not getting offended on the Internet if you can’t even be in the same room as a bigot.

I want to talk about the doctor on United Airlines who got dragged off after refusing to give up the seat he was randomly selected for. I want to talk about the Google guy and his memo that was leaked when he was asking for feedback in a private group. I want to talk about how Trump is actually the best thing for this country in the long run, and how Hillary would have been a bandaid for a much deeper problem in US society. The one word summary is probably “anti-intellectualism.” Our cultural relationship to education needs a massive shift towards reverence of knowledge, not disdain.

But I can’t because I’m not frothing at the mouth and asking for blood, throwing some tantrum in a strange circlejerk with the violently inclined liberals who I thought were reasonable and rational people capable of using their words until this year. All of these topics are off-limits to those of us who want to discuss the nuances and intricacies of what these events mean for us not only today but in the future. If you think that any of those topics have a clear side that is completely right or wrong, you aren’t paying attention.

The days of open dialogue and discourse are gone. People will pick out a minor detail of your argument and then use that to invalidate the bigger picture you’re trying to address. There’s no more “Can you explain what you mean by that?” You’ll find the other person unwilling to explain because “They’ve explained it a million times before” or “They should know better, I’m not obligated to teach them.” Their lack of patience reveals their true intention of just wanting to feel superior to someone instead of using the opportunity to convert someone on the fence to our side. Way to stay humble fam.

I feel like I’m just rambling at this point. You should continue to have these hard conversations in person, because that’s the only way it seems to actually get through to anyone these days. Trying to have any sort of civil discussion these days online is a pipe dream. You’ll be met with either impatience, ignorance, stubbornness, close-mindedness, or emotional frailty (its usually all of the above).

So your goal for this year: stop trying to change hearts and minds on the Internet. It’s a lost cause. Focus on the small circle that you physically interact with and make positive changes there. There are only two people who come to mind right now who are willing to discuss sensitive topics without judgment and with true openness at any sort of length, Brian and Sebastian, and to them you’re very grateful (A lot of your friends will discuss taboo topics, but they tire quickly).

Finally, let’s end on a positive note. This year still had its high points, and it’s good to remember those times since it makes all the bad worth it. You got into credit card churning, and that’s going to help fund your future travels for years if not decades. You got to go on some pretty sweet trips this year (you already mentioned some earlier), out in the desert of Palm Springs for Cynthia’s birthday and of course, that MOTHERFUCKING ECLIPSE. Words and pictures will do it no justice, but you’re actually considering becoming an eclipse chaser from how spectacular it was. It’s as good an excuse as any to travel the world after all. Dragoncon was so great this year! Coming almost a week early to see friends and family was the right call and I’m already hyped for next year.

Mistakes were made but lessons were learned. Carry them with you. Be your own person and don’t let others define how you should live your life. You’ve always had a good moral compass, but you tend to doubt yourself a lot and seek others for guidance and confirmation. While it’s good to learn from those around you, It’s high time you started believing in yourself, especially when it seems like the rest of world is going crazy. I hope 27 is everything you want and more. See ya in a year from now.

Reflections on 25

“25 is going to suck…”

You’re 26 today. Your longtime Internet friend, Brian, was absolutely right in his prediction. 25 was a pretty bad year for you by most people’s definition of success. You spent 100% of it living at home with your parents with no steady income. You fell out of touch with a lot of your friends. And you spent a good portion of it feeling mildly depressed, which was a new emotional hurdle you’ve never had to personally struggle with.

Originally this was going to be a similar post to last year, a chronological stream of consciousness work that you wrote all in one sitting. But it doesn’t feel right to do that again. You’re a different person now than you were last year, and you’ll continue to change in the years to come.

I just want to hit the highlights of this year and expand on what you learned. Let’s get started.

Work is good for the mind

There’s no getting around this. If all of your basic needs are met, then you should still work towards something to prevent your mind from essentially wasting away. With no bills to pay and food provided by your parents, a perfect breeding ground for depression is set. Without struggling towards something, anything, you will become weak-willed and soft-minded.

And it’s interesting how you personally decided to alleviate the problem. I imagine that most people try to avoid thoughts of sadness and loneliness through distraction. In your case, it’s video games. There’s nothing like playing video games for hours on end to help you forget how shitty you feel. And that’s exactly what ended up happening. Over time, more and more of your day was consumed with just playing more video games.

But the major problem is that you didn’t earn that relaxation time. So once you’ve left your self-induced escapist trance, you have this feeling of guilt that just stays with you. You tell yourself you’ll do some work tomorrow to make up for not doing any today, but tomorrow never comes and the cycles just feeds into itself. The guilt from playing video games all day makes you feel bad, and then to escape those feelings you play more video games. This is what people mean when they talk about how hard it is to overcome depression.

And keep in mind that you’re only diagnosing yourself with mild depression. It’s not like this is something you’ve struggled with for years like others you know, but it was enough of a weight on your shoulders that it was noticeable. Your parents remarked one day that you’ve changed, that you’re no longer the cheerful person you used to be most of the time.

And they’re right. Something changed inside you this year. You lost enjoyment and pleasure in a lot of things. Food. Music. Conversation. Even people. Nothing was appealing to you except for the video games, but even those started to lose their luster over time. The days blur together because they’re filled with the same solitary routine. This is a slow process that creeped up on you over many months. You eventually overcome it, but I don’t think it’s left you completely. Depression has made its mark on you and who knows how long it will take before that scar fades.

Lasik Surgery is amazing

Winter rolls around and you get Lasik done. It’s not cheap, but your parents are paying for it and it means no more glasses/contacts for decades. You’ll pay them back someday when you have the money, but for now it’s a glorious gift given by your gracious parents who continually sacrifice for you. You’re not really one to throw around hashtags (unless you’re being ironic) but #blessed is pretty applicable here, no sarcasm intended.

Going from roughly -6.00 in both eyes to better than 20/20 vision (you’re currently 20/15) is akin to being reborn. I can’t even describe the magnitude of the difference it makes. Your vision and your hands are the most important tools you have, even more so as a knowledge worker in this technological age, so try and treat them kindly as you get older.

The other major thing of note is how quickly humans adapt. Within 8 weeks after getting the surgery done, you had already forgotten the hardships of living with poor vision for roughly 15 years. Keep this in mind the next time you’re reluctant to dive into something new for fear of it being too difficult. You will quickly adapt and push the boundaries of what you thought you were capable of. Continue to strive forward even if the path ahead looks difficult.

Relationships are built slowly and crumble quickly

Two major falling outs happened this year to you personally, and another happened between two close friends.

The first big one was with your sister. In short, it was the culmination of years of miscommunication and apathy on your part. The argument happened over text, which is by far one of the worst, if not the worst, mediums to hold any sort of important discussion. This is the second time in your life that you’ve let an argument happen this way and both times have ended disastrously for all parties involved. Continue to try and avoid this scenario at all costs, even if the other person is goading you into it.

The second big falling out was with a relatively new group of friends. You all had built a fairly solid relationship over the past few months and this group had quickly started becoming your closest circle. Unfortunately, after one tragic day, you said and did things out of anger in a less than sober state that had some very long lasting consequences. In mere minutes you’d destroyed many months.

Both of these relationships will be somewhat repaired later in the year, but things will never be the same going forward. There is a shadow that looms and darkens all future experiences, a shadow that will linger for a time. Hopefully one day it will dissipate through effort on both sides.

These half-redemptions are quite different than the third falling out that happened between your other friends. In a similar fashion, words and actions done in the heat of the moment destroyed years of friendship between the two. And since both parties have poor conflict resolution skills, that relationship was never recovered. Maybe it had been broken far beyond repair and they had finally just reached the tipping point; it’s hard to talk about the intricacies without being in the thick of it and only seeing the straw that broke the camel’s back.

And I think it goes without saying, but if any of the involved are reading this, please keep in mind this is my perspective of how events happened, so it’s not the full story (or even entirely accurate) by any means. But I’ve thought for many months on what could have gone differently, what I could have done to prevent these terrible things from happening, and what the best course of action to take going forward is. It’s easy to sit back and analyze in hindsight, but practicing what you preach is a much harder endeavor.

I don’t write about these things to embarrass any of you and I hope you aren’t upset. I’m writing them down because they impacted my life in a major way and will continue to do so for years to come. I’ve learned valuable lessons through all of you and I am grateful for that. I can only hope that you’ve done the same, no matter how strong or weak our relationships become in the future.

The US will never appreciate the Renaissance Man

The Renaissance Man has been one of your longest running goals. This is something that conflicts heavily with capitalism, where specialization is encouraged to an extremely high degree. And if you’re not constantly improving in whatever area you have chosen to try and carve out a career, then chances are that you’re in for a rough time.

So what if you enjoy writing or learning the ins and outs about personal finance or making music? None of these are directly related to your main profession of software development so any time spent doing those activities is time not spent perfecting the single craft that puts bread on the table. I believe that is how most people would view these activities, as “hobbies.”

But the hobbies are important. They allow your mind to think with different frames of reference. They allow you to explore areas that are vastly different than the ones you are familiar with, which in turn allows you to bring a fresh way of thinking to a subject. With these new modes of thought applied in unconventional ways you not only broaden your own horizons but can end up creating something a master would never even think to attempt.

The big new creative project for you this year was your podcast. While you’ve had to put it on pause for over 6 months now, you do want to revisit it at some point. To be frank, it honestly wasn’t very good by your own standards, but most things created by beginners never are. It will probably take many years for it to become satisfactory in your eyes, but don’t let that deter you.

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
- Jake the Dog

So continue to pursue these hobbies, these side projects, whatever you want to call them. You will glean knowledge from them that will be useful in other areas of life. And you can’t say thanks enough for the people who’ve listened and given you feedback so you can improve. Make the podcast great one day for all of them.

Job hunting is still terrible and will probably always be terrible

If there is one thing you absolutely despise in your industry, it’s the job hunt. Interviews can be passed or failed on the most arbitrary of reasons that have little to no correlation of how well you will succeed in a role. But let’s leave it at that not delve into the details.

What was actually great for you this year is the part-time freelance project you’ve been working on with an old Sapient coworker. It reminds you of why you got into web development in the first place. It’s engaging and fun and it’s a goal to strive towards. You’re looking forward to finishing it, but you also don’t really want it to end. If I had to point to a single thing that saved you from that depression this year, it would have to be this.

You also searched for a full-time position on and off throughout the year. The first big position you were actually looking forward to getting would have been with Sapient in their London office. Your friend Brian (not the one from the beginning) helped you along, putting in a good word for you the entire time.

Ultimately, you didn’t get the position because they ended up hiring someone else while you were still in their interview process. I don’t think there was anything you could have personally done here. They dragged their feet getting back to you the entire way as you were left waiting and willing to tackle any challenge they sent your way. So for the arbitrary reason of lethargy on their part, you didn’t get a position you were qualified for. Such is life.

The second big position that actually panned out is with Dassault Systemes in Long Beach, CA. Their interview process was surprisingly decent and let you shine by discussing past projects and building a rapport with the interviewers. The position sounds interesting and Long Beach seems like a nice city. You’re gonna have fun and grow there. You leave in two days with your old college buddy Kyle on a cross-country road trip.

You’re feeling nervous and excited and a little sad about leaving behind Atlanta. It’s been home for close to 8 years now, Georgia being home for over 20. You’ve outgrown this place and it’s time to make a big change. A fresh start.

“…but after that, you’re gonna be set for life.”
- Brian Jung

So yeah, this year was pretty bad for you. But it got better at the end. You’re optimistic about starting over in a new city with a new job. You’re already wistful about leaving behind your Atlanta friends. And your family too. You’ve all done a good job this year of being more open with your problems and issues, and it feels like you’re becoming closer.

And finally, a big thanks to the people who kept me going through this year. Juliana, Daniel, Mansi, Brian, Brian (you two really need nicknames), Dad and Mom. You all helped me directly and indirectly in countless ways, whether it was through hours of thoughtful discussion or just the small experiences that left lasting impressions on me.

The (Accidental) Alcoholic's Guide to Introspective Pattern Recognition and Meta Analysis

So I’ve been thinking about introspection lately. And that’s not to say that I’ve been doing more of it myself (I’m constantly doing it and I think I would go crazy if I were to try and do it anymore than I do already), but I’ve been thinking about the act of introspection itself.

The thoughts of pattern recognition and meta analysis of the Self came to me as I advised a friend about trying a new drug for the first time. While I initially had very little reservations about their Gung-ho attitude, after I slept on it I had some concerns which I felt they needed to hear.

These concerns were about their personality and how they’ve reacted negatively to other drugs in the past. Now I realize that I’m not them, but I’ve done the drug in question a few times so I know what to expect, and due to my aforementioned introspective nature, I’ve thought heavily about my experiences.

And maybe I’m out of line here, but I just can’t bring myself to say that I think everyone does the same thing. I can think of only one person off the top of my head that I personally know who’s objectively critical about themselves, and that’s pretty dismal to say the least (and I am aware that the plural of anecdote isn’t data, blah blah blah). It seems to me that most people just aren’t able to make the abstractions necessary and see the patterns of their lives.

An example for me personally is alcohol. I know to a pretty high degree how I will feel after one drink, after two, after five, and so on. I can assess my situation and environment before I start drinking (and make updates while I drink) and then stick to my “optimal amount of drinks at this moment” without deviating from that. I’m very disciplined about my drinking.

But time and time again, I see people and friends who drink too much. And it’s not my own personal definition of drinking too much, but their own, because they literally tell me “I drank too much!”, followed by copious amounts of regret shortly thereafter.

And we’re all humans here. We make mistakes sometimes. That’s how we learn and grow. But when it’s the same mistake repeatedly, I can’t help but wonder if you’re even paying attention to yourself. To your life.

Why does it seem like so many people are unable to see the patterns that lead them to undesired consequences? You’ve drank before. You’ve drank too much before. Do some self assessment and stop before you reach the tipping point?

“But this time was different, I forgot I hadn’t eaten all day!”

Really? I would consider myself as someone who hates food when compared to the average millennial. I can eat the same thing multiple days in a row, I never spend more than 5 seconds planning my next meal, and I sure as hell don’t take any pictures of my food on a regular basis. I even replaced half of my meals with Soylent for a few months because I would rather chug a tasteless liquid than to worry about what my next meal is. Sadly I’ve had to stop in recent months because when you’re living at home with a mother who won’t stop trying to feed you every two hours no matter how many times you ask her to stop cooking so much damn food, you give in and place your mom’s feelings over your own health just so you don’t have to have an argument with her every day over something as basic as food.

Do I sound ungrateful? If you were to replace a mother who pushes food on you with a government who mandates that you smoke a cigarette every two hours, do I still sound ungrateful? I realize that’s a bit of an extreme metaphor, but I hope you get my point (and I hope you also know that I think my mom is still an amazing person, despite our vastly different views on food).

Where am I going with all of this? As someone who barely cares about food, I still remember to take into account how much I’ve eaten when I’m drinking. I just don’t buy the argument that you forgot when I know you constantly make plans around food, anticipate those plans for hours if not days, and then document those plans as they’re happening for Instagram. Your actions don’t line up with what you’re trying to claim.

“I lost count of how many drinks I had.”

I don’t think I’ve ever counted how many drinks I’ve had. I’ve seen people write tally marks on their arm to keep track, and I think that’s a good idea, but it’s something that I’ve never done personally. Drinking has a mix of objective, physical effects on the body alongside subjective, emotional effects on your state of consciousness, so while being able to count the actual number of drinks you’ve had is good data to know, it’s not enough on its own to help you navigate the night.

Pay attention to how you’re feeling at different points in the night. Pay attention to how that 4th drink affected you. Just pay attention. A large component of drinking is pacing. Five drinks in five hours is barely a buzz. Five drinks in two hours is a different story. You don’t have to keep track down to the minute, but PAY ATTENTION.

“I forgot I took that extra shot.”

If you’re at this point, then you’ve already set yourself up to fail. If your memory and inhibitions are so far gone that you’re unable to recall large parts of the night, then just accept that you drank too much and had a good time doing so. Don’t regret it and don’t beat yourself up about it the next day. Sure you’re going to have a terrible hangover, but that’s the price you pay. Accept it and do it again with full knowledge of what’s to come, or decide it’s not worth it and don’t get to that point again. Either way take some responsibility for your actions.

I don’t know how a post that was supposed to be about introspective pattern recognition and meta analysis turned into a crash course on how to not become an alcoholic, but I’m cool with it.

Notice the patterns in your life. Think about what it means for your life if those patterns continue. Make better decisions.

First LSD Experience

A quick note here: I originally wrote this in June of 2015. A friend of mine hosted it on his blog but I’m rehosting it now on my own since his blog is now gone.

Background

I’ve wanted to try LSD for a long time now. It was never an intense feeling, but it was something that I had thought about doing for at least the past few years. Recently I learned that I had very easy access to getting my hands on some, so naturally this experience that I had wanted to try “sometime before I die” jumped to the top of my priority list.

I’ve recently gotten into podcasts, and one of the ones I’ve been listening to is The Tim Ferris Show. He had a guest come on and read his essay about drugs and the meaning of life, which you can read (or listen) to at his website. I highly recommend listening/reading to this essay, regardless of whether or not you want to try LSD. It covers and challenges a lot of the preconceptions and stereotypes that are generally forced upon you throughout your life, and might even make you reconsider some of the other drugs that you already imbibe without a second thought. In the essay, neuroscientist Sam Harris says that if his daughters “don’t try a psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD at least once in their adult lives, I will wonder whether they had missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience.”

And with that powerful statement, I was dead set on trying LSD ASAP.

The Morning

I wake up around 10am. I have a tentative idea of what I want to do for the day, but I’m also aware that like most drugs, I could potentially just say “fuck it” and do whatever comes naturally in the moment. The only thing that I know for sure is that I will not be driving anywhere, so I need to make sure that I have food available for the day. I make a quick run to Jimmy John’s so that I’ll have food for lunch, and I already made plans to get picked up by a friend for dinner around 6pm.

I take out the tab of LSD from the little plastic baggy that contains it and place it under my tongue. It’s 11:40am. I fire up Hearthstone to kill some time and wait for the drug to kick in. I hold off on eating my sandwich.

30 minutes after taking

Nothing really happens for a while. I play a few games of Hearthstone. But then I start to notice that I don’t feel quite like my normal self. My head feels lighter than normal, a familiar feeling that I’ve had when I’m high on weed. A smile starts to form over my face as everything seems more cheery than normal I start laughing out loud and unwrap my sandwich.

And then my mom calls.

Somehow, my mom just knew her son was trying a potentially life altering drug, and she just had to be there with me. I’m trying to decide if I should answer or not. I do, and my mom reminds of an upcoming wedding the next weekend that we had talked about going to a few weeks back. I try and end the call as fast as possible since my mom likes to ramble on about things, so I try to act busy and am a little more curt than usual trying to get off the phone before she realizes something’s up. Sorry mom!

At this point, I’m actually glad she called right then and not later. I’m now assured that I won’t be bothered by my family for the rest of the day. I dig into my sandwich.

1 Hour After Taking

By this point, I’m feeling really good. The world is shimmering and everything is wavy. I’m amused at how similar my current perception fit a movie’s depiction of what it’s like to see from the perspective of someone on LSD. I’m listening to Django Django as I continue to eat my sandwich, and I remember it tasting way better than usual. On the flip side, I start to become very aware of my body, and I can strangely feel every bite as it travels down my esophagus and into my stomach. It’s a bit strange, but I was forewarned not to eat too much at once so I pace myself.

I can feel all of my senses heightening. Everything starts to become intense, but in a good way. It’s like I’m experiencing everything on another level, which is pretty cool. I would liken it to a baby discovering its senses just after being born. I need to calibrate and relearn how to interpret my world with my new senses.

After I finish my sandwich, I decide that it’s time for a walk. I start looking through my music and decide on Passion Pit’s “Kindred” as the first album I want to listen to.

The First Walk

I’m currently living in a house in the suburbs, so luckily there’s a decent amount of nature around me to enjoy. And I enjoy the hell out of it. I’m looking at all of the trees and grass and bushes and flowers, and everything is looking great in the sunlight. A gorgeous day for a walk made even brighter by my current visual perception. Things are bursting with colors.

I walk up the path I usually drive down when I get home in the evenings because it’s a curvy road with a lot of trees lining it. It sort of looks like that picture of a garden tunnel with everything overgrown with greenery.

I pass a graveyard on the way there, which might have been a bit depressing under normal circumstances. But I laugh as I walk by, enjoying the scene and the upbeat sounds of Passion Pit.

I get to the overgrown tunnel and it’s just as visually stimulating as I hoped it would be. I stop at the railroad tracks that cut through the road and stare at the nearby concrete wall that is slightly painted with graffiti. I see the face of a samurai and study it for a while since I love graffiti.

As I stood there, I get a text from one of my old high school buddies, asking about my current housing situation. At this point, I’m tripping way too hard to discuss anything remotely serious with anyone. This friend usually calls, so I’m thankful that he texted this time because it would be easier to put off until I’m in a better state of mind. I tell him that we should have that conversation in a few hours and he responds with an ok. Crisis averted, time to get back to my wonderful moment.

I remain where I am for a bit as a powerful wave of emotion rushes over me. I’m so overcome at the current scene that I actually start to cry. I message a few friends and tell them that I’m currently laughing and crying at how beautiful and sad the juxtaposition of nature and man was as this railroad crossing. After a few minutes I turn around and head back home.

A small side note, I get home and decide that I want to watch a particular Adventure Time episode, “The Food Chain”. That episode is trippy enough sober, and it was insane on LSD. You can apparently watch the episode here, and I would highly recommend doing so if you have 10 minutes to spare.

The Shower

I start getting ready to shower. I’d heard that this was something I should do while tripping, so I was pretty excited. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. A couple of factors were at play here. I usually don’t shower with my contact lens since I rub my eyes a lot when I shower which leads to them moving around and coming out, but since I had my contacts in for a few hours already I felt fairly safe leaving them in. The other factor is that my shower is not like most showers. The bathroom is wood paneled.

So as you can see, there are some interesting “figures” (I spent 10min googling trying to find out what they were actually called instead of just saying “wood markings”, you’re welcome) in the wood paneling. I’m just gonna say that combined with the ever-present waves in my vision, I saw quite a few faces staring back at me as I showered.

Slightly unsettled but mostly amused, I go through my normal shower routine. I can hear Tycho playing faintly upstairs and I’m so ready to have a wonderful experience. I close my eyes, work shampoo into my hair, rinse it out. I do the same with my conditioner, but by the time I reopened my eyes after getting all of it rinsed out, I felt like I had lived an entire lifetime. Time was moving very differently for me. It’s simultaneously short and long. A lot seems to happen in seemingly nothing, and then a large expanse of time will pass where it feels like nothing seems to happen. I get out of the shower and get dressed while occasionally laughing at my reflection in the mirror.

The Second Walk

After I was dressed, I looked out the window and noticed that the world was wet.

As I showered, the world showered with me.

You have no idea how happy this made me. I was literally ecstatic that it rained only while I was showering. I fired up Kishi Bashi’s album “Lighght” for my listening enjoyment and rushed back outside for another walk.

I took a different path this time, but it’s still the suburbs so there’s still a nice mix of nature around me. Everything is nice and wonderful until I walk past this older man. He’s outside checking his mail or something, and as I approach him I start walking over to the other side of the street because I’m a bit anxious that he might be able to tell that I’m on LSD, even with my sunglasses on. I walk by him in the middle of street, give a customary head nod and grunt out a “hey” as men tend to do, and walk on.

But as I walk away, I realize that he had been smoking something. A cigarette. At this moment, I felt very offended by what this man had just done to me. I thought to myself about how even though I’m over here out of my mind tripping balls, I didn’t force him to take my drug like he had just forced me to take his.

Now of course, I’ve obviously heard about second-hand smoke and I’m well aware of how terrible tobacco is for you. But the experience was very visceral and raw in that moment. I vowed to never have another cigarette in my life and to not be around people when they choose to do so.

The only other major thing to note during this walk was the tree I saw. I’m standing on the sidewalk near an intersection and I notice this tree with purplish leaves. I’m enchanted.

But I’m a little nervous about some of my neighbors watching me and noticing that some guy is just standing outside on the sidewalk and staring very intently at a tree. I quickly quell that rising fear by reassuring myself that it’s my right as a citizen to stand and stare at a tree if I damn well please.

So I did.

I stood there and stayed for the entire duration of “In Fantasia”. After that, I headed back home with nothing really interesting to report on the walk back. But when I did finally get back, it started pouring rain about 10 minutes later. I remember feeling very fortunate that the universe had granted me these amazing experiences of sun and rain exactly when it was my desire to walk or return home.

A Friend Picks Me Up

I kill a few hours inside, not really doing much. The strongest part of the high is over. I start to meditate, but can’t really keep focused so I give up and just jam to more music for a bit. I make my way into the living room and my roommate and his girlfriend are there, so we just chill for a while, playing music on a speaker. I sit near the door and divide my attention between watching the rain and my roommate’s girlfriend hula hoop.

Around 6 my friend picks me up so we can go get dinner. I’m not really hungry at this point but I am enjoying the car ride immensely and tell her that she can just stop and eat wherever. We drive around for a bit. She gets fast food and we park and just talk as she enjoys her meal. Sunshowers leave rain droplets on the windshield as I watch the gorgeous sunset.

We start heading back after a while and I get really emotional. Seeing the sunset as one of favorite songs plays was so overwhelming, especially as the events of Mother’s Day a week earlier bought themselves to the forefront of my consciousness. I cried as I recalled how the entire family was fighting on a day that we should have been celebrating. I don’t really want to get into a lot of detail here, but lately my family has been working out a lot of the issues we’ve buried over the years. I think that overall it’s going to be a good thing, but as we try to go through it a lot of tears have fallen and a lot of arguments have been had.

This experience was a pretty big deal for me as I reflect back on it. It’s one of the few times I’ve cried in front of someone who isn’t a part of my immediate family. It’s a level of comfort I don’t share with many people in my life. I don’t know if I would have been able to if it was someone I didn’t know as well. But I’m really happy that I was able to be myself in that moment without feeling like I would be judged. I felt safe.

I focus my mind back to happier thoughts, and by the time she drops me off it’s around 8pm.

8 Hours After Taking

I admittedly don’t do much for the next hour. One of my other friends wanted to see me while I was tripping so we talked for a bit and she came over. While I waited for her to arrive, I watched a few episodes of Adventure Time. I still have this lightheadedness going on, but my visuals have more or less returned to normal by this point. The head high keeps me in a state of introspection and openness, and I find myself thinking about loftier thoughts than I normally would. I would say it’s similar to a marijuana high at this point, but not entirely the same. It’s hard to describe.

9 Hours After Taking

And speaking of marijuana, that’s what my friend does. She smokes, we watch more Adventure Time and just talk on the couch. I would normally join her, but the high I have from the LSD is still going on so I decide that I wouldn’t partake today. I tell her about my day and go into some of the stuff from this post. I can’t recall anything specific that we talked about since I’m writing this about a month later and I only took notes until about 5pm.

A Friend Leaves

She leaves after a while since it’s Sunday and we both have work tomorrow. I get on my desktop and just kill some time, waiting for the LSD to finally wear off. I talk to some friends online through Mumble (a VoIP client, similar to Skype/Hangouts but without video) and relate my experiences to them as I did with my other friends. I play some video games and just snack on whatever I can find since I’m finally hungry. I watch some TV, read some of my book, and try to go to sleep.

But I can’t. LSD keeps you up for a while, and at this point I’m kind of annoyed that I can’t fall asleep. I play soothing music and set a timer for it to turn off after 30min, but I stay awake through it all. I don’t fall asleep until around 3am.

Lessons Learned

So what did I gain from all of this? Quite a lot actually. I learned how it felt to be new to the world again, recalibrating myself with newfound senses as a baby would. I felt the delight a child feels when experiencing something an adult would consider mundane because they’ve done it so many times prior. I realized that the vast majority of adults are unhappy with their lives because they are forced into situations where they are unable to enjoy the simple pleasures in life.

While I was tripping, I became aware of the fact that I was not myself. Whoever I was before, whoever I thought I identified as, whoever I thought I knew, was somewhere else. All of his hopes and dreams and fears were neatly packaged away in another part of my mind. A place that I knew that I could return to safely once my journey was over. I felt a huge sense of freedom when I realized this. And truthfully, it was nice to get away from myself for a short time.

I also learned that there is a duality to many things in life. Happiness carries some degree of sadness within. Expression of thought can never truly capture all aspects of the moment. And binary is something that rarely occurs outside of computers. Humans aren’t good at black and white because it’s rarely that clear in life. There are many facets to an experience, an idea, an issue. We have to embrace that fact instead of trying to categorize.

On a more practical level, I learned that it’s unwise to take LSD when you don’t have the following day to recover. Tripping on a Sunday wasn’t a great idea because I had work the next day. I went in on Monday, exhausted from not being able to sleep until 3am, drained from not eating enough, and a little down coming off the high from the day before. It was probably one of the worst case of the Mondays that I can recall. So going forward, I will probably trip on Saturdays so I can have Sunday to sleep in, relax and recover.

As for long term effects, I can assure you that they exist psychologically. It’s been over a month now and I’ve done an immense amount of soul searching in that time. An interesting thing to note here is that while I was actually on the drug, I didn’t care to think about my own problems and future to any large degree. Maybe it was because it was my first time and I was still adjusting, but my thoughts tended to gravitate towards the human condition and problems we face as a society. Conversely, in the weeks since my trip I’ve focused more on my own aspirations and desires. I’ve been mulling over what I want to accomplish and what I want to get out of life. I’m still deciding and will probably keep reevaluating for the rest of my life, but I feel like LSD has made me think about these things more than I normally would have. Or at least through a different lens.

Would I recommend this experience to someone? Yes, but not lightly. I would say there are a few conditions that you should try and objectively evaluate about you as a person.

1. If you’re prone to any sort of psychological illness then maybe you shouldn’t try it. LSD tends to amplify anything that you’re thinking/feeling, so a bad trip is entirely possible your first time. That being said, it makes everything feel good and wonderful for the most part, so maybe those depressing thoughts wouldn’t even surface. It’s hard to say. My trip was pretty much 100% uplifting, but there were a few moments where I could see myself starting to head down a bad path. I actively focused my mind away from those thoughts and onto better things, so there was never any part of the trip where things were bad. Even when I was crying I felt good.

2. If you aren’t interested in trying it, then you probably shouldn’t. I decided years ago that I wanted to at least try it once in my life, but I’ve also decided that I would probably try every drug at least once in my life. I would say having some sort of passing interest is important, and ideally it’s more than that. My passing interest was upgraded to a must try from the podcast I mentioned at the beginning, and I think it’s what helped me really enjoy my first time.

3. What’s your reason for trying LSD? Mine was to explore my own consciousness and mind and see if I could learn something about myself. Some people like to take drugs for the effects they have on your body, and while LSD does have very uplifting effects and fun visuals, those weren’t the main draw for me. I wanted deep introspection into my self and LSD is an easy way to help facilitate that. Of course I didn’t really get to do any meditation since my attention span was shot, but towards the end of the experience I found myself able to focus a lot more as I melded back into reality.

In closing, I came out of the experience a very changed person. Better or worse? I would say neither. But different. And as a good friend reminded me, “Every experience is life-changing on some level. You just pay attention to some more than others. LSD isn’t some magical life-altering substance, it’s just an experience that you dwell on and turn into an influential part of your life.” And I think that’s the truth of it.

Reflections on 24

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You’re 25 today. The past year has been difficult, but it doesn’t feel difficult in this current moment. You’re really good at adapting to whatever comes your way. Everyone is, but most never bother to flex those muscles and think themselves so much weaker than they actually are. But before I, the 25 year old snapshot of you, starts to go off on a tangent, let’s start from the beginning of 24 and work to the present day of September 4, 2015.

24 started off rough. Really rough. You’ve recently ended the best relationship of your life. You listened to all of the advice passed on by those older than you that it’s better to be single than to be in a relationship that isn’t working. It’s heartbreaking, but you’re strong enough to go through with it. If you didn’t, you might not have grown as much as you did in the upcoming months. Let this stand as a reminder for you in the future.

You also inadvertently became part of a love polygon, because that mess was way too complicated to only be a triangle. You probably ruined two potential friendships forever, and not only did you get almost nothing out of it, you took all the blame. You took all the blame for multiple people. You had a lot of secrets at the time, and that’s not something you enjoy because then you have to start lying to people. And while you can actually weave the web of lies well enough and keep it straight in your head, you dislike the actual act of lying to those you care about.

You’ll be laid off from work at the end of September. You have no idea it’s coming. You’ve been at Sapient for almost 1.5 years now. You’ve enjoyed it immensely. You’ve made a lot of friends there, and you’ve learned a bunch of things about web development. But you’ve started to stagnate. You aren’t growing as much as you used to. An inertia keeps you in bed in the mornings for an unreasonable amount of time. An hour one day, maybe 2 the next. You don’t want to go back to sleep, but you also don’t want to go to work. The joy of your work has been slowly sucked out from you.

But it’s not the end of the world. You’ve already realized this and you’ve started interviewing at other jobs in your evenings. You finish the two projects you’ve been working so hard on for the past few months before noon on Monday. You kill some time, go to lunch, and start looking for new work. But by 2pm, you’re sitting in an office with your supervisor and an HR rep, being told that “you don’t work here anymore”.

It’s an ethereal feeling. Like walking through your old high school after not being there for a few years. Everything’s the same, but everything’s different. You have some quick private meetings with your friends to break the news to them. They’re all outraged and are wondering how this could happen. You echo back what you were told from the HR rep about how the company isn’t projected to do well in the next quarter and did poorly in the previous one, so they had to make budget cuts across all the offices. That you’ll be given a month’s pay as severance. You tell them that even though you’ve been working your ass off to get your most recent project ready for the convention it will be prominently displayed at, it’s an internal project. And internal projects aren’t billable to a client, so your billability isn’t 100% like all of the other non-junior devs (I guess that promotion 6 months into the job actually ended up fucking you over). Basically a bunch of business bullshit.

So on paper, you’re underperforming. But in the office? You’re loved. And that’s what really matters. The people. The workplace is just an excuse to hang out with other people and build towards something. Anything. Maybe that’s why most people are afraid to leave their job, even if the actual work isn’t fulfilling. Because it’s hard to let the people go. Because building things together with others is one of the greatest joys in life.

You’ll learn in the upcoming months what the differences between work friends and (for lack of a better term) real friends are. I say this with no disrespect to my Sapient people, because you’ll know you made a lot of real friends at Sapient in the coming months. You’ll be invited to the company holiday party as Brian’s plus one. It will not be awkward, but amazing. Everyone will be happy to see you and will express their surprise at you being there and tell you how much they’ve missed you.

But I’ve skipped ahead. Let’s go back to the beginning of October. You have no job. You have no girlfriend. You’re in this strange love polygon. You’ve just turned 24 less than a month ago. This is not how you envisioned your life to be at any point in the past. But now it’s your reality. Everyone around you is freaking out, but truthfully you’re not all that upset. It’s a fresh start. You love fresh starts. The catharsis of killing your old self and reinventing yourself into someone new has always been something you’ve enjoyed immensely.

Maybe that’s why even though you were laid off on a Monday you were in San Francisco that Saturday. You had the gracious offer from Kyle, Jarvis, and Nick that you could stay with them for the whole month and look for a new job there. It was the most appealing thing at the time. You’ve been toying with the idea of leaving Atlanta for months if not a year at this point, and here was the golden opportunity. So you take it, and run to the other side of the country and try to start over.

You drink the Kool-aid. You chug every ounce that’s blasted into your face by the firehose that is Silicon Valley. You work 8 hours a day, applying, studying, stressing. You work harder than you have in the last 6 months at what was your actual job. And you do this all while sleeping on an air mattress in a 4 person apartment hardly bigger than your 2 person apartment in Atlanta, except you learn that the rent is 6k versus the 1.5k you were splitting with Daniel. You realize that if you moved here, you would be paying roughly double your current rent while getting half the space that you currently have.

But you don’t care. You’ve bought into everything else. The perfect weather. The freedom from having to own a car because you finally live somewhere where the public transit isn’t horse shit. The allure of some big name company hiring you to work for them, and of course the paycheck that would let you afford the insane housing market that is San Francisco.

I wish I could have told you that all of these things won’t matter to you 6 months later

You manage to snag a 3 month long contracting gig with a small startup within your first week. You’re feeling like a bigshot. This is easy! You play the field and eventually turn down the offer because it’s not guaranteed that you’d have a job starting 2015. All you saw were 10 hour days selling your soul, leaving you no time to look for anything better.

You interview with other companies. They all love you and think you’d be a great culture fit, but they’re looking for someone with a bit more experience. That’s the problem when you target smaller companies. They need people who already have experience and have no time to grow someone more junior. Multiple times you jump through the soul crushing hoops that is the current state of the computer science interview process, only to be turned away in the final round. You probably faced rejection over 20 times in those 30 days. And that much rejection really weighs down on a person’s psyche.

You return home fairly empty handed. But you worked hard, learned a lot, and had some fun along the way. One of your old ex-girlfriends even messaged you out of the blue, and you both bonded over the mutual struggle of finding a new job. It was nice to have someone to talk to during that period, someone who was going through what I was going through.

But now it’s November, and the holidays are here. Companies have filled their quotas and won’t be hiring until next year. So you just take it easy. You build up your relationships with your friends. You struggle with your family about long standing issues that have slowly eroded away the emotional rock that families are supposedly there for.

These struggles will culminate on May 10 of next year. Your entire family will be crying and yelling and fighting on Mother’s Day. And while that sounds terrible on paper, it was actually a good thing because those issues that have plagued us for however many years will finally be brought into the light. We won’t resolve them that day, but at least we will acknowledge them. It’s a step in the right direction.

December and January go without much incident. You go to the holiday party, you go to a new year’s party. You’re still studying and searching for a job, but you’ve lost some hope. You start interviewing in Atlanta just for the practice, but you land an offer at a company that seems pretty alright. You could use the money because your ego has been preventing you from taking money from your parents for the majority of this time. Pat yourself on the back for living a good 4 months or so without any of your parent’s help, whereas most of your friends would be completely fucked if they were laid off tomorrow.

You start your new job on February 16th. You temporarily stop searching for new jobs as you settle in and try to make a good impression. You figure you’ll be here for a few months at the minimum, so you make the best of it. You learn as much as you can and you start rebuilding your emergency fund. It ends up being a good experience for you. You now have the perspective of how two companies run. You are able to compare and contrast what you enjoy and don’t enjoy from each, which lets you pin down what you would like out of your dream job.

After a month or so though, your apartment complex tells you that they will be raising your rent by $200 if you want to renew your lease at the start of May. You come to the conclusion with Daniel that instead of renewing your lease, it would be better if you just landed a new job out of the state before that happened. So you decide to finally leave what you called home for the past 2 years.

Around this time, a lot of things start happening at once. Mansi messages you out of the blue, and you catch up and start trying to be friends again. You end up moving in with Brian (sort of) and Andrew, and you learn that your other ex who you were talking to back in October is moving back to Atlanta. You get dinner with her one night to try and rekindle a friendship, but slowly you stop talking because she starts doing that thing where she doesn’t respond to your messages until 4+ hours have passed constantly. You notice the repeat behavior that caused you so much emotional and mental turmoil when you dated, and like the terrible addictive drug she is, you cast her out of your life cold turkey. She is Tammy and you are Ron Swanson, and nothing good has ever come from her so keep her out of your life at all costs.

In the meantime, you become good friends with Andrew and his girlfriend Caitlin who are both amazing people. You start the job search back up and it wears away at your mind. You spend 8 hours working a job you don’t really enjoy, only to go home and spend another 2 to 3 hours applying, studying, interviewing, and being rejected. A notable interview with Qualtrics almost landed you in Provo, Utah. But once again, you make it to the final round and are turned down without much of a reason as to why. Probably lacking experience again.

You’re in a mental hell around this time. Your social life is practically nonexistent with all of the time you put towards finding a new job. Combine this with most of your friends being wrapped in their own relationships (some new, some ending) and you don’t really have much going on in this area.

But there’s a light here. And that light comes in the form of LSD. You’ve already written extensively about your first time, but the experiences you have while tripping are some of the most profound and life altering you’ve encountered at this point in your life. You experience ego death and shed away all of the pressures of society, your family and friends, and even yourself. It’s glorious.

You come away with a renewed sense of self. You know who you are on such a deeper level. A level that is unshackled from the input of outside influences. You leave behind those desires that were thrust upon you by your parents, your friends, your society. Literal decades of other people telling you what it means to be successful. What it means to be happy. And what you “have” to do with your life.

Fuck. Them. All.

You solidify the goals that are core to you as a person as you see them as the things you truly want out of your life, distilled into the quintessential hopes and dreams that sum up to be you. This is the privilege you have been given, so always remember to appreciate those that have enabled you to be yourself. Number 1 being your parents, who constantly give up their lives so you can live yours.

But do not abuse this privilege. Just because you are finally in tune with yourself, you are not granted free access to be a dick to those who around you. While you enjoy your solitude, be wary that you still crave social interactions. Make more attempts to be the one who sends the invitation. That’s something you’ve always been terrible at doing.

Your empathy for others is also raised to new heights. You become even more tolerant of the decisions and shortcomings that plague everyone, including yourself. You start believing in the innate goodness that is inside everyone to a naive fault. You envision an idealistic world that you later have to accept can never exist.

For you see, even though your faith in humanity has been refreshed, you are also reminded that humanity is terrible. For nothing is truly good or evil. And the laws that are set in place to protect us are there because there was some asshole who ruined it for everyone else. Or some other asshole who had a little bit of money and power didn’t like something so he outlawed it for no good logical reason. Indeed, all of our laws throughout history are based around preventing assholes from being assholes.

And that’s a shame. Because 100% of our problems boil down to miscommunication. The inability to capture an idea in its entirety and transfer it to another person, with all of the opinions, experiences, and knowledge that lead you to that idea in the first place. This is humanity’s greatest tragedy.

But you’re rambling now. Let’s get back to what’s happening. You’re at your wit’s end juggling your job and hunting for a new one at the same time. You catch a break with your housing situation though, because the landlord is terrible. This means that you’re moving out again, which turns out to be a blessing in disguise because without a place to live in Atlanta, you have no choice but to go back to live to with your parents. It’s an easy out from your prison.

With almost all of your close friends gone (or unreachable because they have lost themselves into their significant others), it’s not a hard transition. Juliana’s the only person you will truly miss having around, and you still only see her about once a week so it’s not a huge change. Of course when Daniel gets back that will also suck not being around him, but truthfully there’s been this strange divide slowly growing between you over the past year. And him being in San Francisco for the summer hasn’t helped.

You’re not as close as you were in college, but people change so it’s unreasonable to expect that you’ll be best friends forever. But best friends are born out of proximity, so it’s only natural that you’ve started to drift apart. Luckily, life friends don’t care about distance or time, so take solace in that you will always be a part of each other’s lives in whatever capacity you’re able to, big or small.

So here we are. You’re currently living with your parents. You’ve just turned 25. You’re looking for a job, but the American work culture is the most disgusting thing you can think of. You’re thinking about leaving the country, not just the state, because it’s absurd how much better almost every other country treats their employees. But you don’t know what you would do for a living. Continue coding? Maybe. The circle jerk of the narcissistic “elite” of Silicon Valley also repulses you. A bunch of kids solving first-world problems that they themselves created the year prior.

You’re not sure what you want to do anymore. But you have to do something. And I’m predicting that this is the question you will struggle with throughout 25. Having left The Matrix, you see right through the systems that have been set in place to prevent people from thinking about the questions that haunt them when they’re alone in the dark without the warm glow of a smartphone to distract them. But being out here comes with a whole different slew of problems. While you’re no longer planning your days around your next meal like the majority of people, you ache for the simplicity of that life that you’ve left behind.

Because it’s familiar. Because it’s what you yourself have done all your life until now. Because it’s what everyone you know does.

Because it’s lonely.

Welcome to the path less traveled by. The question now is will you continue to make your own way, or will you get back on the “ideal” path? That is to say, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, and die. I don’t think either choice is wrong.

But neither feels right.

Friends

Now that I’ve moved out of Atlanta and back to my hometown, I’ve been thinking about who I want to spend my time and energy on. Gone are the days of making plans on the fly and being able to meet at a location with less than an hour’s notice. I’ve started to notice the things that are barriers to friendship, the most obvious one being proximity. The other big one that I’ve been ruminating over lately is socio-economic status.

There are entire groups of people that you will never be friends with because the activities that they perceive as “normal” are not your version of normal. The rich are friends with the rich, because they are able to partake in activities that others are not able to afford. Similarly, the poor are friends with the poor, because they cannot afford to see people who want to do activities that require money that they don’t have.

So you make friends with people who are on a similar position on the spectrum. That friend who can no longer go out for drinks because they can’t make rent if they do? They’re basically a ghost to you since that’s the activity you previously enjoyed doing together and you never found any other common ground.

Somewhat tangential to this is the expectation that an activity must be happening in order for you to see each other at all. At least in my circles, it’s rare to see your friends outside of a specific context, which is usually food or drink. Friends don’t just drop in to say hi and sit around and talk for a few hours anymore, and I wish we did because we’re all moving so fast these days. If we’re not “multitasking” by seeing friends and having dinner at the same time, it’s almost as if we feel unproductive with that time.

It’s kind of a shame.

With all that being said, I want to celebrate some of my friends. The following are 10 people who’ve been in my life for at least the past year, most of them longer. I constrained myself to find something that I think is awesome about them, and then to find something that I think isn’t so great about them. I might do another 10 at a future time because these were just the first people that came to mind. There are many other people in my life who’ve shaped me into the person that I am today.

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I have a friend who’s always wrapped up in his work. He loves what he does, and I love that he throws himself into his passion above and beyond any other sane person I know. Sometimes we disagree on how to handle situations in life, but I still love him.

I have a friend who can tap into her inner child with almost no effort. She can be stubborn at times, but I love that she sticks to her guns. Sometimes I don’t understand the things she does, but I still love her.

I have a friend who’s switched places with me. Where he was in his life a year ago is where I am today, and vice versa. I love that he worked hard to get to where he is, and I’m happy that things are finally looking up for him in life. Sometimes I feel like he’s too pessimistic, but I still love him.

I have a friend who’s on the other side of the country. I love that he’s an amazing guy who’s already accomplished so much in his life. Sometimes he will throw pity parties for himself and I get annoyed with him, but I still love him.

I have another friend who’s on the other side of the country. We’ve never met in person, but for the past 6 years he’s been an inspiration to me. I love that he’s true to himself and never apologizes for being who he is. Sometimes I think he says or does some truly awful things, but I still love him.

I have yet another friend who’s on the other side of the country. He’s one of the most sensible and open-minded people I know. I love that he’s wicked smart and is also a huge stoner, defying the common stereotypes from where he hails. Sometimes we go months without talking for no reason at all, but I still love him.

I have a friend who was once a lover. I ended things because I couldn’t get enough of her, and she didn’t have the time and attention that I wanted her to give me. I still love everything about her. Sometimes she doesn’t reply to my messages and it bothers me more than it should, but I still love her.

I have a friend who’s a serial monogamist. He’ll disappear into his significant other for weeks on end, but he’s been trying to balance his social life better. Sometimes I worry that he’s putting all of his eggs into one basket, but I still love him.

I have a friend who’s been in my life since 6th grade. I love that he’s the only friend who I expect to get a phone call from rather than a text. Sometimes I think he tries to be too much of a people pleaser, but I still love him.

I have a friend who I didn’t like at first. I felt like he was never serious enough about anything, but he’s shown amazing loyalty that I can’t help but admire and try to match in return. Sometimes he still gets on my nerves, but I still love him.

And then there’s me. I love that I’m self aware enough to at least acknowledge a few of my many shortcomings. Sometimes I’m a huge hypocrite and am terrible at keeping in touch with people, only to get upset when others fail to keep in touch with me.

But I still love me anyways.