Turning 18
Today I turn 18. Feels a bit anti-climatic, to be honest. In terms of academics and career prospects, I'd say I did a fine job until this point. Over the last 18 years I've met some people that I care about, lost touch with most of them, and met some people who cares about me as well. Albeit intersection of the two sets is declining in size as I speak.
Overall I am grateful that I get to experience life as it is today. I feel like I owe a lot to those around me -- parents, friends and more. I've always be a bit too sarcastic for my own good. At some point I've lost the ability to disclose myself. I lack emotional honesty; I think it led to me losing a lot of the people that I care about. I wish I could be more sincere to those around me, but I feel physically uneasy when I speak the way I write here in front of people I know. Sure, now is probably the time I should focus on getting into a good college, getting a good job, networking and all that -- but I think that would be the easiest part of the life to come. (I mean, I'm a stereotypical "tech bro" in the middle of a tech boom, of course I'd likely overestimate how much I'm worth) The difficult part is finding people I care about and keep such relationships. I've been in this same school for over 10 years and it has been pretty difficult for me, I should only expect it to become more difficult upon college.
This probably sounds trivial to most, but the past few months has been pretty difficult for me -- I lost my pet dog for quite a few years, and lost touch with one of my best friends(and crush). Combined they start to take a toll on my mental health, and as a result I started to focus solely on doing work, I tried to ignore all the messy aspects of life and derive a sense of meaning from the act of creating value. To some degree that worked -- I have probably written more lines of code and gained more users in the past three months than all the time before then. My software engineering & product skills improved a great deal -- I'm getting good at deploying software into production and "delivering value" to my users. To some degree, I do obtain a sense of meaning and direction from doing engineering and serving my users. But working for a few hundred people I have never met and barely know personally -- is this really sustainable? I think I still need to anchor myself to the mundane reality around me. Though they don't share the same interests as I do, it's much easier to be authentic with them. Erik Erikson is right I suppose, I am reaching the stage of "intimacy vs. isolation." Have been leaning toward isolation ever since I lost touch with her; I don't particularly like it. All must believe in something in the end, so if I should but my belief in anything in the world, I'll believe that it is within my abilities to change things. I'll believe that if I act with intent, things will turn out to be alright, and the intersection of the group of people I care about and people who care about me will grow. I don't particularly have the track record to support this optimism, but I might as well believe in it and go along with it.