Once again…

Here I am, wondering if I’m going to be moving back to my Mum’s house. It’s about money. Isn’t it always? It’s a bit of a shame you can’t just go online and pick up work, hand it over and get paid there and then. People want to know their workers though, and often hang on to them. Sometimes they even want them to enter the office.

I did start writing yesterday. I didn’t hate it but I kept getting interrupted and it just ruins your flow. So I thought I’d start again. The other issue I seem to have is that I fall asleep once I get to about here in my writing. Well. I get very sleepy. Computers send me to sleep which is a huge issue if I want to be a developer.

I have decided I’d like to stay here. I mean I want a whole new life, new career in something else and to change everything, but for now I’d like some work in my hated field. It’s because I like having the roof over my head that I put there whilst I am improving my health. Well, maybe I’m no more healthy but I’m losing weight and I’m entering the loss of my second stone. Sleep is another issue.

I’ve been a tired person for about thirty years. I’ve not been energetic since I was a child and I’ve not felt energy on waking in so long I can’t remember what it’s like. I don’t want to live like that. With energy levels like that you barely have enough to wash up let alone live the rest of your day even if it’s to do something relaxing.

I’ve considered chronic fatigue. This because I’ve really wanted to work out why my brain is slower than other people’s and why I can’t grasp information at the same rate verbally as others. I could just accept this as a fact, of course I could, but it stops me from being successful in a career I don’t want but feel I need. I still need to pay the rent just like everybody else but I need more support than most because I’m tired and I can’t think clearly. Should I just accept that and become a cleaner? How can I?

Unfortunately, career-wise, this is damaging. I know that people aren’t accepting if you explain that you’re slow. I have a decent brain, I think anyway. I could come up with a solution to a problem that might take a while to implement, but it would work. I might then come up with an entirely different solution…sue me I’ve not studied patterns and algorithms specific to web development. Or any field actually unless you count the simpler bits such as bubble sorts and binary chops.

I’m torn between feeling that at times I self-sabotage. The thing is I don’t want to work in this field. It’s unhealthy and being of low energy anyway I can’t do anything else with my life. At least given my current energy levels. I find existence uncomfortable so I settle down doing one thing. Job applications are complicated. Often you don’t have a choice but to go through a recruiter and recruiters are very often self-serving, heartless salespeople who don’t think twice about telling you what you want to hear, explaining that they’ll send a job specification over once they’re off the phone and then vanishing because they didn’t mean any of it. It’s not honest, it wastes my time, and I’m considering a dedicated shit list. I’ve no need to be rude, although if the opportunity where there, asking me to I don’t think I’d hold back with some light insults, but on principle I cannot work with people who treat human beings looking for work like that. My principles are strong. My last permanent job I resigned from because putting in far more time than I was paid to wasn’t enough to please and I can’t work like that. If you do your best it should be appreciated and if it isn’t, then on principle I won’t continue because my life is important, so, therefore, is my time.

I think I went off there. Why do I self-sabotage? I’m not one hundred percent sure I do. I am just so tired of the jobs. I am tired of offices and people behaving like the place is a cult and they’re a fully paid up member. Happy to be there. Who the fuck is happy to be there? Why do I have to pretend? It’s stressful. Why can’t we all be human, admit that none of us want to be there, and struggle on. I could do that.

So part of me wants a break. It’s a fine line, though, knowing you want a break from knowing you need one. Actually I know I need one but if I’m going to struggle with my energy like this for a long time then I’ll always need one so you have to keep going.

I think I’m bored with coding too. I don’t have enough other people or things in my life. I’d like to move, but even when I do I hide indoors. Generalised anxiety they have said. I think I might just be a wimp.

So recruiters get in the way of direct employer communication which I’ve always done better with and there seems to be less opportunity for that these days. Always a pleasure to see adverts that say “No agencies”.

It’s boring. Right? I look for work on a computer, when I get the work I do the work on the computer, when I’m not working I’m chatting, watching Netflix or writing on this fucking machine. What can it do that I’m interested in? Two things; music and graphics. I think I’d opt for graphics. Is it possible to learn enough Blender to make money from home? Probably. It certainly sounds more exciting. Do you need more skill than what you can learn? Besides an imagination? I think partially in 3D. Impossible to know how 3D people generally go, 3D animators probably heavily through necessity. I like it. It gives substance to my thoughts. Ideas. Even just visualising primitive shapes. I wonder if I would enjoy that more. It’s still on this “fucking” computer but it’s a step back.

When I first started coding I looked at Visual Basic 6.0. I liked it. Everybody was familiar with Windows and making applications seemed like magic. Later I looked at Pascal. Delphi, Java, C++, SmallTalk. Objective C. Swift. I like coding like that, I was never so keen on web development in college. I liked playing with DirectX. I used DirectX 9 at the time using DirectDraw to display 3D things. That was magical. The speed of the thing. Plotting each pixel giving coordinates to a function I’d written. Using that function within a line drawing function, and using that line drawing function in a polygon drawing function and so on. It’s magical. Seeing the maths at work. I liked that. But maybe I could ditch the maths for a bit and look at just drawing in 3D?

The thing about going online and asking “Does anybody need a website?” is that you know that it might start out exciting; seeing a designer’s vision and being happy to be a part of making it a reality, and the start of the project is generally exciting if you have more energy than I have right now, but coming up to the end of the project can get exhausting. Tweaks here, tweaks there, tiny little things, but often awkward things and it loses its spark.

Why do I get so tired. My head is lolling. I woke up about four in the morning and I’ve been up since. It’s now ten past eight. This is in part a big reason as to why I feel I need a break. I can’t function so well. Maybe I’m hungry? Maybe I get tired before I know I need the food? Things are about to get very abstract because my thinking isn’t clear.

The problem! The problem is I will be shattered. I’ll apply for a job, but then if someone contacts me I’m too tired to contemplate an interview much less doing the work.

At the moment I’ll end up back at Mum’s. I just don’t have the energy to keep on with the cycle of applying for a job, eventually getting the job, then leaving the job, but it’s not without cause. I can’t say to a recruiter “I’ll contact you tomorrow as I’m feeling ill today” because I’ll still feel like shit tomorrow.

I contemplate the idea that maybe things make me tired that I’m unaware of. Such as not eating. Maybe I don’t eat the right stuff. Maybe I don’t eat when I should. Maybe I don’t notice when I’m hungry or thirsty. Fuck knows I’m tired though.

I’ve just requested a sick note from the doctor so I’m hoping they’ll say yes and I’ll be able to relax a bit for the next month. I’ve had enough.

I’ve gone on a mental tangent. A pause you’d not have known about.

I can think no more now though. So I will away. Perhaps dousing myself in gin. Failing that a little water would do.