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I am retiring from tech to live offline

openpath.quest

11–20 of 617 posts

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#12
post #2

thank you for this. what a sacred journey you're embarking on. i hope to follow you - talking with a close friend now about becoming an elevator mechanic. my wife is pregnant so i have to find a profession that comes reasonably close to tech salaries. i've been writing poetry by hand. i think the world you envision is possible, and closer.

Do not do this until your youngest child is at least 4.

There is no profession better matching what women in western countries expect from a co-parent than tech. The money first and foremost, but the flexibility to work (more accurately, pretend to work) remotely, too.

Let me reiterate:

For your marriage, do not do this until your youngest child is at least 4.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#14

I just retired after 40 years writing code. The last year or so wasn’t fun - battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted. For a long time, I thought I’d do a lot of hobby or open source coding when I retired. I haven’t even tried. I’m not burned out, but find I’ve lost the passion for coding I once had. Is that AI? Or is it me? Maybe as my retirement progresses, I can rekindle that passion, but as of now, I d…

I made it 27 before I retired. I kind of wish I was older so I could have enjoyed more years of what was a fun career before it turned into... this.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#15

I just retired after 40 years writing code. The last year or so wasn’t fun - battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted. For a long time, I thought I’d do a lot of hobby or open source coding when I retired. I haven’t even tried. I’m not burned out, but find I’ve lost the passion for coding I once had. Is that AI? Or is it me? Maybe as my retirement progresses, I can rekindle that passion, but as of now, I d…

I retired, after 30-some years. Actually, I was forced to retire, by folks that don't think us greyheads should be working. Fortunately, I had the means to retire. Those means had nothing to do with a FIRE strategy. I just saved, lived humbly, and stayed at a job for a couple of decades.

But I have been doubling down on my tech work. Once the knuckleheads were removed from the soup, the flavor improved markedly. I love this tech stuff.

Oh, and I have been using AI. It just helped me to find a nasty crashing problem, and I hope that it will help me to determine the best way to fix it.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#16
I'll never give up tech. It's a passion I've had since childhood, and a large part of what keeps me going in society is seeing the lights of the eyes brighten when someone discovers something new with technology that genuinely makes their life that much better than it was a moment ago. Not merely the flame of some dopamine hit of something shiny, but that genuine, "Thank you for helping me save an hour of my time/cross this chore off my list forever/give me back time, to live my life" sense.

The fact so many of us are burning out so hard, so fast, so thoroughly despite tech being a passion genuinely worries me. These are otherwise brilliant people, well-read, modest intellectuals that are just sick of this anti-human society we've built, with the constant braying by Capitalist and Industrialist leaders that this thing is necessary or you will be left behind, in lieu of natural discovery and adoption and integration into our lives. We bought into it initially and for so long, even as time after time after time it proved to be empty, or shallow, or vapid, or hollow. Never life-changing, never society-changing, always enriching those with far too much by taking from those with far too little.

I wish the OP well. I think we all need more offline time, if just to remind ourselves what the role of technology was always meant to be within it.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#19
I love my current job, but also part of me thinks a Garbage Man would provide a cool experience. (I'm ok with the stinkiness). I just think about careening through the city at the crack of dawn, exploring every nook of my city. That or group fitness instructor.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#20

I just retired after 40 years writing code. The last year or so wasn’t fun - battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted. For a long time, I thought I’d do a lot of hobby or open source coding when I retired. I haven’t even tried. I’m not burned out, but find I’ve lost the passion for coding I once had. Is that AI? Or is it me? Maybe as my retirement progresses, I can rekindle that passion, but as of now, I d…

More and more I have realized it was not the coding that I enjoyed, but solving problems/puzzles. This fits into the beautiful code not really mattering to more than myself but the solution for people, but that is hard to let go of.
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