Surviving Disillusionment

> ... running breweries and hydroponic farms, with no desire to ever again touch a compiler, let alone get back into the fray.

Reiterating the point of the article: it doesn't need to be this way. Whether tech is your passion, your hobby, or your job, it does not need to feel like a "fray".

This website is one of the worst offenders, since it relentlessly, breathlessly promotes new shiny things every refresh. It's a social network. It's addictive. It is only good in moderation.

Here's another idea (in addition to the bolt action rifle and the old computer on your desk): hang out with people who are not in the tech industry (it's a lot easier to do this outside the Bay Area). Revel in just how little they care about JS frameworks.

> If you'd started to programm something that you like + would make you money you'd be back programming in no time rather than pivoting to otherstuff.

Yes, sadly those almost seem mutually exclusive.

As an open source developer who enjoys coding, a lot of these thoughts resonate strongly with me but this article is overly pessimistic. It's OK to be pessimistic but that doesn't mean you should stop trying to make things right because otherwise it becomes self-fulfilling.

Also, we shouldn't look at fiat currency as the only form of achievement, especially given the artificial economic environment of the past decade. Many smart people know that Slava co-founded RethinkDB and realize that it's one of the best databases in existence. That genuine brand value is way more valuable in the long run than worthless fiat paper or company stocks whose earnings are denominated in that same worthless fiat.

It's important for millennials to realize that the past 10 years of monetary policy which contributed to significant centralization of wealth and power is not normal and it won't last.

> If you leave your love of programming and the feeling of the computer revolution romance on autopilot, the industry will burn through you. It’s your responsibility to know exactly why you’re doing the specific job you’re doing, what your long-term goal is, how to develop a credible plan to achieve it, and what you need to do (and not to do) to keep your underground spring of creativity alive. Don’t outsource this to anyone else, and don’t neglect it. No one can do that job except you, and the job needs to get done. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life growing hydroponic tomatoes.

This is something that I think about often, but it's difficult to find a path that is creativity-sustaining. In practice it hasn't worked for me. Alternatively, I have considered seeking tech jobs that are not demanding and have fixed hours, leaving time to explore passions outside of work.

This is spot-on for some of us here. I told my friend last week that I'd like to come work construction with him and will be quitting my decently-paying programming job to go do so in 3 weeks. I'd started to interview at another tech company and realized that I couldn't bear the thought of programming for someone else again. I burned out so hard at my current job I can't conceive of working anywhere as a programmer and enjoying it. So I'm going to go pour concrete and frame walls and hope that someday I'll sit down at a computer and want to tell it what to do again. I do remember that magical feeling. I just can't feel it anymore.