Not All That

I have chosen a different path. At various intersections I’ve deliberately walked away from academic and career opportunities to pursue something different before I even knew what I was looking for. I didn’t build a family and have no children.

I’ve lived in three different cultures on three different continents on some kind of spiritual quest. I’ve practiced meditation for so long that I figured I must be doing something wrong because I expected to be floating in the air by now.

At first I was more than a little arrogant but also impatient enough to be sincere in my quest. That turned out to be a dangerous combination. Intense meditation practices shattered illusions and showed me I was maybe not all that. The first time it is not just the falling away of an illusion, it’s also the realization that who I think I am is made up of illusions. The proverbial onion.

The pain seemed difficult to bear. Something like being ditched by someone you’re in love with. One thing that made it even more difficult is that the pain didn’t point to a cause. For a while I could not interact with anyone. In a sense it’s like some kind of fever. I observed it and just waited it out. After many hours of anguish I finally fell asleep and woke up the next morning as someone else. Lighter, less encumbered, humbled and with a new appreciation for life.

Until recently I got by with some freelance programming, then AI came and took that away in what seemed like a minute. That experience made a dent in who I thought I was. I used to enjoy the intellectual workout and the sense of accomplishment. A machine being able to do that better now, essentially for free, is something I am still coming to grips with. I’ve been through something like that a number of times before. That kind of experience went from soul-crushing to a temporary struggle.

The loss of programmer identity was a low intensity version of the same thing.