One of the reasons I stopped blogging as much recently was because I never really felt like I had the time anymore, and whenever I tried to make time, I'd either get paranoid over how much time I was spending (because writing takes me 6+ hours, and I dislike interruptions once I've started), or I lose sleep in the process and end up going to bed around 3 to 5 in the morning. And these days it takes me 3-4 days to recover from one night's worth of little sleep, even if "little" happens to mean 6 hours. After that, I can't really self-process or partake in activities that normally would require some level of mental acuity, like reading, or job search prepping, or even starting everyday errands. And I hate it.
It is nice to not have to be so rushed for once.
Now that I've (more-or-less) recovered from emotion hell and have had some time time to look backwards and forwards... here's a lengthy post on four things I've had on my mind while in the process of moving on. Some of this may be more frank or straightforward than would be expected of a technically public-but-personal blog, but eh, I like openly processing things in this manner sometimes. I'm still in the midst of figuring all of this out for myself, so consider the thoughts and opinions represented part of an ongoing work-in-progress... because it's taken me years to come this far.
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On job searching, resumes, LinkedIn, positioning statements, and "building a personal brand": I've seen it often stressed by career counselors and in stuff I've consulted in my own research that you should emphasize your accomplishments, or what you achieved, rather than your duties or simply what you did, when talking about your past work experience on your resume or in other places that recruiters and potential employers will check. Things that you would be willing to brag about to other people if you had the chance. But well, what if you aren't necessarily proud of even the work you did do?
Barring the fact that I can't really quantify the accomplishments or the effect that my previous work had (since much of it was structured around simply doing what needed to be done anyway), compared to say, managers or people in finance, I find it difficult to really speak excitedly about my past work at work in the same vein; after a certain point, I felt like I was just working to get by. Ironically, I've found it more exciting to talk about what the overall project goal for my team was, rather than what my individual contributions towards that goal were. Part of that may be tied to my own self-doubt regarding how valuable I really was to my own team and some of the frustrations I experienced in working with them in the past, which hasn't been helped by fact that I did get laid off before our last project was completed.
If anything, I'm more proud of the little things I've done outside of work in the past years (schedule planning for friends and family; successfully conducting multiple Bible studies in spite of ongoing faith issues; individual conversations and personal emails; making headway with a number of friends, some of whom I've struggled to be present with over the years; this wedding I just officiated), most of which isn't really all that relevant to any potential future employer in the field that I actually want to find work in.
And that's not to say that I'm looking for work in the wrong industry or place. What few strides I've managed to make, exploring my options and working on side projects in my spare time, have made me feel more confident that I honestly do still want to work in software. It just feels harder for me to leverage my past in a way that may captivate potential future employers, the way all these career advisors and recruiters in the industry talk about it. The implications have even been imparted to me in more negative terms by some: spend too much time situated in one job, especially a job that you don't like, and it actually can reflect badly on you as a person or prospective employee.
That's honestly something I've struggled with for a long time. I like coding, but I'm not as driven to pursue new opportunities or developments in the industry (or at least historically, anyway) compared to other people I know, especially the ones I would look up to. I highly value the time I get outside of work to do other things, because I believe there is so much more to living than simply "what you do" as Silicon Valley puts it, but for me personally it often lopsidedly turns into prioritizing my free time above anything else... because in a normal 9-5 work environment, I don't have to "make time" for work like I have to for anything else.
Even more than that, I usually just feel like I don't have enough time outside as it is, because there's simply too much else I want to do in life. Even now that I'm unemployed, I still don't feel like I have enough time; I've barely scraped the surface of all the little things I've wanted to do since I got laid off, and that's not including unplanned time that I've needed to recover mentally and emotionally, and it's already been three weeks. Time just feels like it's moving faster than ever for me, and I don't know if I can keep up with it.
But that's enough musing about my professional life for one day.
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One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the limits of relationships-- my own limits in particular, as I've been a lot more conscious of how my desire to maintain connections with people in different areas of life comes at odds with my low tolerance threshold for being around people. Under normal (non-traveling) circumstances, two days in a row is pushing it for most people; by that point my mind starts to shut off and I just want to chill at home alone. And then I get disappointed when I experience a conversation with a good friend that breaks off into the silence of uncertainty, even though a lot of that silence reflects my own state of being.
Consequently, there are individuals who I've known throughout the years who I still think about sometimes, but haven't really kept in touch with for a long while... or was never really close to to begin with, but part of me still wonders what might've been if we did actually talk more than once at some get-together every year. In some of these cases, it doesn't even make much sense given that we lack apparent common interests, or opportunities to meet (did I mention I haven't really had a free weekend in months?) combined with physical distance. And then I wonder why I even bother thinking about it then.
Social media has a weird effect sometimes-- in the sense of fooling you into thinking that you're up-to-date with someone's life and therefore are still in some sense "close" to them, or close enough to be able to talk to them like you're still a part of their life. And I fall for it so often, failing to acknowledge how one-sided it is. Even while there's some part of me that still at least wants to know, at least wants to not be out of the loop the next time I might see them, at least not miss out on the privilege my other friends are getting in being able to still be part of this person's life. Because I am inclined to like (or think I like) being friends with people even when I don't really know them well... or only know them from the image they project online.
It's why I get excited sometimes when people reach out to me out of the blue. I like to think of myself as always open to people (given time availability), even though that's not really the case. But when another person is willing to give you a chance first... I guess it ultimately makes me feel good about myself. Like someone actually wants to talk to me!
Basically, I base a lot of my self-worth on how much other people validate me even though I shouldn't. It's what makes reaching out so difficult for me at the same time: because when I'm rejected, I take it so personally, as a reflection of something wrong with my own identity. It's something I really need to work on; I can see all the ways in which I've let opportunities go and relationships die by not acting out of fear. I just wish I had more energy to be present for others with the chances I do get.
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At present, I'm kind of in this weird situation where I happen to be more continuously involved with church, or particularly small group, than I ever really have in the past, while at the same time I'm also more distant from God than I've ever really been (or as I put it to my therapist: "we aren't on speaking terms right now.") I've been more-or-less open about this with most of my small group, in addition to a lot of other personal things that I'd never have imagined sharing with anyone even a couple of years ago. And they've been incredibly supportive in the process.
To be more specific: I don't really know what or how much I really believe anymore... although I say that with a very heavy caveat to follow. Ironically, I have no problem with conducting a Bible study for other people (in fact breaking down and analyzing Scripture is something I still enjoy doing a lot), but I have issues more with how we apply the messages that we take away to real life experiences. Perhaps I'm going too far on the academic side of things here, but I've found that the more I've learned about the Bible and its history and the nature of how it's interpreted across different churches and denominations in the world... the more difficult I find it to just accept what I read or hear at church at face value. At this point I'm more inclined to doubt the historical accuracy of much of it (at least up until David's time period), and even when it comes to the specifics of Jesus and Paul's lives, there's a lot that I'm skeptical about for now.
To add to that, church that we have today is not the same church that emerged two millennia ago, nor is it as monolithic as some people like to imagine. The fact of the matter is that it's possible for one Christian to come to a completely different interpretation of what they consider to be truth from another, with both using the Bible as justification, and it's not always clear which view is really more valid to everyone else (unless you have something like Sacred Tradition to define that for you, as I imagine Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox would expect). Even with the aid of contextual analysis, the Bible is not a one-size-fits-all reference for how to live your life; there are plenty of issues that are current today for which it is silent. But people will pick and choose what they consider to be right through the lens of their own experiences, more often informed by their own cultural context than anything else, often beginning with an assumption on a topic (see: abortion) and trying to justify that assumption by going backwards to Scripture instead of the other way around.
This problem is not just limited to the Bible either; I can see a parallel in say Supreme Court debates regarding the constitutionality of laws and whether we should care more about what what the original writers intended at the time of writing, or whether we should revise our interpretations as our culture evolves and new and unforeseen situations emerge for which past precedent doesn't hold as well anymore. But in that regard, I don't think Christianity could've survived till today without continuously evolving, and adapting to new and unforeseen needs and cultural situations, and as a result certain understandings and beliefs that may have been taken for granted in the past may make less sense today. And yet a number of people will insist that a statement made in one book of the Bible holds true for everyone in all situations. I mean, the Bible itself documents the evolution of a people's understanding of and relationship with God over time, so naturally there are already laws and ideas in earlier books that get annulled over by later ones anyway. And I'm pretty sure the same holds for the way churches come into being and operate today.
This is not to create a slippery slope for bad theology nor to try to completely invalidate the church, but rather to point out what I see as a reality that's too complicated to be restricted to a notion of complete and total acceptance or rejection of it. I would like to think that at least some of the Bible's authors earnestly believed in the purpose for which they wrote, even if some aspect of what resulted doesn't reflect the actual historical record.
I've seen the argument made from a conservative standpoint that if you disregard the accuracy or truth of one part of Scripture, like say the creation story or the fall of man, you have to disregard everything. That is to say, if the Fall didn't happen in reality the way Genesis recorded it, then Jesus's sacrifice is meaningless, and likewise if Jesus didn't rise and come back from the dead, then the continued existence of the Church that we have today is also meaningless. I used to worry about this all the time too, back when I initially started doubting: that if I came to some realization or conclusion of Scripture being historically false, then all the experiences I'd gone through over the years would've been invalidated and our continued striving ultimately futile and pointless... up until I figured out for myself that that sort of fundamentalist-driven mindset is more like digging yourself deeper into a hole to try and save yourself from the tsunami that is about to come. So much church doctrine that is followed today isn't explicitly spelled out in the Bible at all to begin with, but rather emerged over centuries of fine-tuning our understanding of both Scripture, as well as our understanding of how God works in the world at large. I don't believe it's fair to attribute the entire basis of the Christian life to a book that didn't even exist in its entirety during the early years of the movement; it obviously came from much more than that.
Even if I were to come to reject the church's teachings, I cannot ignore the impact that it's had on my life and perspective, along with the good I've been able to witness and experience in the midst of my worst doubts and fears. There are many things that churches do well that I wish I could see more of outside of them, to the point where I almost wonder sometimes if man was meant to only accomplish greater good in the world through an infinite series of misconceptions or misunderstandings of the way the world really is. How many people in the world would be as motivated to be thoughtful of others, to love and forgive their enemies, to sacrifice time, money, and hospitality for strangers in their midst were it not for the influence of religion in their life? How many people would be as intentional about building relationships and communities even when it inconveniences them?
Obviously, there are people outside of religion who do this as well. But I've seen enough in my experiences outside of Christian community to note that the exact or entire standard for what it means live a good life isn't always well-established or widely accepted even in those contexts. Some people are willing to forgive old grievances, and others aren't, but whose place is it to say who should or shouldn't? Whose responsibility is it to help the poor, and where do we draw the line before it turns into a waste of time and resources? How much of what we possess and own is really ours, and how much of our success in life is due to our own accomplishments as opposed to the privilege and opportunities we received because of what family or social status we were born into and genetics we were given? Is grace even worth considering? And what are we ultimately striving for or trying to achieve with our lives; or is it even necessary to have an answer for that question?
There are also many religious communities out there that work specifically at trying to cultivate an attitude of mindful awareness, particularly about the way we live and make use of our limited time on Earth, and in the end try to achieve something good out of that, even if their conception of why they do so may seem at odds with those around them. And I'm not convinced that they're just doing good "in spite of" the trappings of their religion or whatever cynical view that may be taken of their work. And to turn the chessboard around (sorry, Umineko reference >_>): to what extent does the Bible have to actually be historically accurate for the truths that people have taken from it to still hold? Is it really pointless if, somehow, its adherents still earnestly work at making the world a better place because of it? If they still strive to do better in the process?
Of course, there are plenty of ways in which Christians over the years have caused more harm than good as a result of problematic thinking or discriminatory practices and the divide between good intentions and good results. But as I said before, the church isn't a static entity. Understandings will evolve with time, and I believe more people will become more cognizant of these issues, just as our culture at large is becoming more open and aware of issues and injustices that have long hidden under the surface of society with impunity (like the current state of race relations in America). At least, that is also part of what I would like to try and help accomplish within my own church: an increasing awareness of the beliefs and behaviors that are often taken for granted in the community, and the impact those can have on the people they seek to reach, in the hopes of being able to mutually understand and build relationships with other people and communities, regardless of their faith affiliation.
As for what all this musing has to do with my relationship with God... I found it easier to talk to God in the past when I honestly believed the words in Scripture to be an accurate reflection of what really happened in the past and of what God really said to us. But now that I'm not so sure anymore... it's been hard for me to say much of anything directly to him anymore, other than to wonder if I'm still doing the right thing sometimes (which is kinda inevitable). Otherwise, I don't really feel much of anything, unless you call apathy a feeling. I also find it difficult to partake in prayer and worship these days, because I lack the conviction or faith to do such things honestly, and worship music is so often structured or written in lyrics that do not reflect what I honestly feel anymore. But I still try to take to heart what truths I do see in Scripture, the ones I see as more reflective of how life ought to be lived. As my therapist put it to me recently: the imprint of the image of God is still on me, in my desires and intentions, even if my specific beliefs aren't entirely in line anymore.
When it comes down to it, even with all of my personal issues regarding the nature of truth and Scripture itself, I don't see my life as any less enriched or wasted by still being involved with church. Perhaps I'm just lucky to have been able to find a community that still accepts me for who I am, even when I don't always feel like I fit in with what is considered orthodox or normal, and when I'm aware that many others have been ostracized from their church communities because of their beliefs. But in that regard, I believe that church communities that do so aren't living up to the standards set by the Jesus that can be seen in the New Testament, the one figure who they claim to follow, who went out of his way to be present with the outcasts of society in his day. There is more to life than simply trying to live it "correctly," and punishing those who fail to meet our standards of right or proper living; but unfortunately, that is what we are prone to doing most often.
All that to say, I'm still in the process of figuring out what all of this will mean for me in the future. Someday, our group will disband and people will leave, and I don't what will happen then, if my beliefs will have changed by then to the point where it no longer makes sense for me to remain anymore, or if I'll find a niche somewhere where I can still contribute somehow. Will I stay, or will I go? At this point, I honestly don't know. But I refuse to give up on it all yet.
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Little things I look forward to in the coming months (aka a giant list of lists):
- Finishing Ace Attorney 6 (Spirit of Justice). So far it's feeling a lot more "polished" than Dual Destinies did, perhaps because the current development team (which originally started with the spinoff Miles Edgeworth games) has finally figured out its groove on how to handle a mainline game. I like how it combines all of the investigation elements that have been introduced in past games: Psyche-locks, Ema Skye's crime scene investigation techniques, analyzing video footage, Apollo's Perceive bracelet, Athena's Mood Matrix, revisualizations, and now Divination Seances. It reminds me of how far the series has come from its early days. That said, the new character names thus far have been rather cringe-inducing (Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin and Tahrust Inmee... ugh), although granted this is the same series that started with Frank Sahwit and Sal Manella so I dunno if I should be surprised.
Other games in the long-term to-play queue: Trails in the Sky II, Fire Emblem 4 and 9-10, Arcanum, The Witcher III, Baldur's Gate II, Pokemon Sun/Moon, FFXV, Persona 5, Torment.
- Refreshing my knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms in preparation for interviews-- okay I know, you can't ever be truly "prepared," but I just want get some practice in dealing with both familiar and unfamiliar problems and articulating my thought process, since it's been years since I last had to do a real live interview, and I still remember what it feels like to be frustrated with yourself over not being able to answer a question that you could've had you actually studied your basics beforehand. Like for one thing, I haven't actually had to analyze algorithmic runtimes or really been pressured to try and optimize my own solutions to a problem in a long time, and those are areas that I want to get better at for my own sake.
This probably sounds weird to some people, but I actually do like revisiting things I used to know, or potentially developing an even better understanding of them than I did before, as has happened in recent years when I've reread books or revisited subjects I've studied in the past, like American history or Japanese. Perhaps it's the sense of becoming a master of my own "domain" for once, since I'm so used to behaving more like a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, as Ryan has called me more than once in the past (thanks a lot... even though it's true, sigh).
- Upcoming musicals: Assassins, Hedwig and the Angry Itch, The King and I, Finding Neverland, Into the Woods, HAMILTON, Roman Holiday, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and possibly Rent. I may consider another trip to NYC next year once Anastasia starts running on Broadway next spring.
- Catching up on all the books I don't feel like listing (see goodreads). I haven't finished a book in a few months... which is a long time for me haha.
- All the online classes I've wanted to at least audit but never had the time to focus on cause of work. Currently going through: Probability, Astrophysics, Chinese history (empire to present), Italian opera, Linux, and Parallel Programming in addition to Data Structures/Algs Review and Interview prep. Also looking at both Medical and Computational Neuroscience, God and Consciousness in Philosophy, A Global History of Architecture, the Ancient Greek Hero, the Meaning of Rome, Human Anatomy, Paradox and Infinity, Justice, Shakespeare, European Paintings, The Quran, Visualizing Japan, and the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, among other things. And not currently in online class-form, but I'd like to look more into the history of Britain, the Spanish Civil War, and Southeast Asian conflicts of the 20th Century including Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
Why exactly? Because all of these subjects have piqued my interest in some way at some point in the past few years or even decade, and in some respects reflect my overall desire to understand more of how the world works, in its full and total complexity. I quote this post from Wait But Why that I have yet to finish reading (woops), but which encapsulates my general feelings on learning about topics that are unfamiliar and difficult to understand:
A Wait But Why post can be a few different things. One type of WBW post is the “let’s just take this whole topic and really actually get to the bottom of it so we can all completely get it from here forward.” The ideal topic for that kind of post is one that’s really important to our lives, and that tends to come up a lot, but that’s also hugely complex and confusing, often controversial with differing information coming out of different mouths, and that ends up leaving a lot of people feeling like they don’t totally get it as well as they “should.”
The way I approach a post like that is I’ll start with the surface of the topic and ask myself what I don’t fully get—I look for those foggy spots in the story where when someone mentions it or it comes up in an article I’m reading, my mind kind of glazes over with a combination of “ugh it’s that icky term again nah go away” and “ew the adults are saying that adult thing again and I’m seven so I don’t actually understand what they’re talking about.” Then I’ll get reading about those foggy spots—but as I clear away fog from the surface, I often find more fog underneath. So then I research that new fog, and again, often come across other fog even further down. My perfectionism kicks in and I end up refusing to stop going down the rabbit hole until I hit the floor.
...I’ve heard people compare knowledge of a topic to a tree. If you don’t fully get it, it’s like a tree in your head with no trunk—and without a trunk, when you learn something new about the topic—a new branch or leaf of the tree—there’s nothing for it to hang onto, so it just falls away. By clearing out fog all the way to the bottom, I build a tree trunk in my head, and from then on, all new information can hold on, which makes that topic forever more interesting and productive to learn about. And what I usually find is that so many of the topics I’ve pegged as “boring” in my head are actually just foggy to me—like watching episode 17 of a great show, which would be boring if you didn’t have the tree trunk of the back story and characters in place.
- And to end: a long-term travel itinerary wishlist:
- Chicago
- Great Britain (London, Bath, Glastonbury, the Cotswalds, Peak District, Lake District, York, Yorkshire Dales, Hadrian's Wall, Edinburgh, Inverness, the Scottish Highlands, Isle of Skye)
- Spain (Madrid, Cordoba, Seville, Granada, Barcelona)
- Italy (Venice, Florence, Rome, Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast)
- Greece (Athens, Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi, Meteora, Santorini, Crete)
- Japan round 2+ (Yakushima, Kagoshima, Kurokawa, Fukuoka, Hiroshima/Miyajima, Naoshima, Osaka, Koya-san, Nara, Kyoto, Hakone, Yokohama, Tokyo, Dewa Sanzan, Yamadera, Sendai, Ishinomaki)
- China round 2+ (Lhasa, Jiuzhaigou, Yangtze River, Zhangjiajie, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Mutianyu or Jinshanling Great Wall, Datong)
- Eurail trip (Zurich, Munich, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris)
- Turkey (Ephesus, Cappadocia, Istanbul)
- Peru (Lima, Cusco, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, Arequipa, Culca Canyon)
- Boston and Philadelphia
Basically I'm set for the next decade and then some lol.
Aaaand that took me 10 hours to finish. I'll have to take a break from this for a bit to actually get stuff done. Later.
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