[BannedInSweden]

Sure - maybe the wrong forum, but the depressive sentiment that our sore thumb ideals are hammered down by the social media monster is mutually felt and quite inline with the article. No one knows exactly what it is like to be you, but many of us feel a similar desire to do more than use our best skills for the mundane - to alter the conversation is a nobel aspiration.

I too struggle with knowledge that I am bright, but that I may not be quite bright enough to be what I really want. Its a frustrating and lonely thought many of us in this field share. Expressing it though - even writing it in a public forum - is often an invite to the social monsters that prowl around here to say "then you obviously aren't that bright". Don't listen. Walk your path.

Just do your best and understand that luck and good timing means more than hard work and brilliance (ask any lotto winner). To say anything else is a like a banner ad for survivorship bias. None of us matter much in the scheme of things and all radical ideas are seen as trash to those "in the know" at some point.

[rblion]

I've come to terms with a lot of things I am powerless over. I've had to accept that the Anthropocene extinction is happening and most people are only vaguely aware, only a few people are willing to change their lifestyle choices. I've accepted that billions of people just want to escape poverty and live with a few of the comforts most of us take for granted. Who are we say no to them? I've accepted that in order for humanity to keep growing, everything else will keep dying little by little. I wish I was wrong but everything I am saying is supported by observable facts.

I've started to grow disillusioned with the tech industry, how different is it from Wall Street at this point? I've grown a lot as a designer, a developer, a writer, a salesman but now I'm only interested in earning an honest living, not so much to 'save the world' like I felt when I was 20. It's tempting though, I struggle with the fact that I may live and die on this world without having had much consequence on anything. Yet I'm beginning to realize that in the end, all we may leave behind as a species is a lot of plastic, crumbling buildings, cigarette butts, and toxic landfills. There is the slight chance that we expand beyond the Earth but judging from geopolitics, I'm not sure we have our priorities right at the most critical time in human history.

I'm afraid that I am too meek to swim with the sharks and in the event I do succeed, then I have to be ready for the day when someone from my past will get jealous and exaggerate something from my past to some desperate media outlet trying to get views. I would much rather buy a cabin in the mountains and grow my own food, enjoy the simple things that have always made me happy. I'm content with a camper van, working remotely, and seeing what's left of the National Parks with my camera and my dog. I'm at the point now where I don't even think I want to get married or have kids, this is where I'm at age 27.