The First Hit is Free

Twitter methadone networks are driving me crazy.

Razorfish laid me off a year and a half ago after working there for 13 years, but I landed a new job pretty much immediately with some of my fellow victims (seriously, I was asked to join before I even rolled off the old job). We had a great team, spent a year spinning up a new digital agency, and then it ended. It was a stupid ending and if you really care, buy me a beer and I'll explain it offline. Anyway, I've been mostly unemployed since February. I had seven weeks of work back with the remnants of my old team at Razorfish back in May and June helping them meet a deadline, but other than that, I've been looking for work. The general unemployment rate is like 3.4%, but the unemployment rate for web developers is Fuck you, you really think this job we posted to LinkedIn is real? HA HA HA HA HA You're an idiot! And the demand for 61 year old web developers with 31 years of experience, more than anyone this side of Tim Berners-Lee, is like negative. With Google and Facebook and Amazon laying off all the web developers they stockpiled when the pandemic started, anyone who needs a developer has their pick, and most won't pick someone with my level of experience when they can get someone cheaper. I had planned on retiring at 62 anyway. I turn 62 in ten months. So I'm still looking because I'm still collecting unemployment insurance and the state kind of insists that you actually look for work if they're going to pay you to not work, but if I don't find anything between now and next month when it runs out I'll just say fuck it and retire. Seems to me like the best way to find a job right now is through friends anyway. I mean it's always been that way, but with all the AI/ML pre-scanning bullshit that resumes are being put through to eliminate all but a few applications and the several thousand applications for every single job out there, it's like the only way to find a job right now.

So anyway, my life doesn't have much structure right now.

I've come up with a list of things I want to do, and so far I've done exactly zero of them. One big reason is that I spend all fucking day in front of the computer obsessively checking on my Twitter methadone networks, Mastodon and Bluesky. It's not healthy. With no structure in my life, I find myself terminally online, refreshing every few minutes to get the latest three posts to show up. It's no way to live.

So at the beginning of September, I decided to do another dopamine detox. I did this back in March, and I wrote a brief something about it at the beginning of April. The stuff I wrote then still applies. Feel more present in my real life, not having my attention sucked up so much, blah blah blah.

So I've been relaxing this past month. I make breakfast for my father-in-law when he gets up in the middle of the afternoon. I talk with my mom about whatever crazy ass YouTube or TiVOed political thing she's watching (usually Colbert or The Daily Show). I'm reading books. I'm kind of taking a course about web components that I backed on Kickstarter, because hey, maybe I'll find a job where it'll be useful and I need to keep up with the latest developments in web development technology. I've been going out some mornings before the live-in parents wake up to shoot pictures. I play Two Dots and Words With Friends. I still spend more time in front of the computer than I should reading the Washington Post and Talking Points Memo and obsessing about whether the U.S. has a future as a democracy or not.

I've been checking the networks again the past few days, although without posting. It still fucks with my head.

One way I was imposing some structure on my life was posting photos on my Twitter methadone networks three times a day at roughly the same time each day. I don't think I'm going to do that any more. I'll still post photos, but not on a schedule. That was fucking me up. Participating in things like the Shitty Camera Challenge was also kind of screwing with my head. All the pressure I felt was self-imposed, but I need to stop doing it. I need to get past my self-imposed sense of obligation in regards to these networks, and if I can't, I need to remove myself from them.

As I mentioned in April, I've been online on social media networks of one sort or another for basically my entire adult life, a good 40 years now. It worked for me. And now, maybe it doesn't. I'm trying to figure that out.

Posted at 1:50 AM
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