u/EndOfTheLine00

The world seems like it’s going to hell, nothing feels stable and I am just waiting for everything to end.

Ever since I was a kid I was always the “gifted one” and now I have a mediocre tech job that might be replaced with AI.

Now I find myself wondering what to do. And the fact of the matter is that I don’t find anything fulfilling.

Maintenance type jobs feel endlessly dull.

Anything involving helping people feels like I am putting energy that will never be given back. That I will be poorly paid to help people that will forget about me.

There is nothing I want to make ir create.

Tech at least felt like solving problems and be paid for it. And now they want to take that away from me.

What do I do?

So I have this really bizarre problem. My family takes very little of what I say about topics (usually current events but even stuff like my chosen field) because I always cite news articles or internet discussions. They will always dismiss me because they ask "But is that your PERSONAL experience" or "Do you know ANYONE who did X?".

The current example is about unemployment in tech. I keep telling them I fear for my job and I get the same answer: "Do you KNOW anyone who is unemployed?" Even when I ended up knowing someone they shoot back with "OK, but do you KNOW that person's exact circumstance?" It's like since I don't socialize with anyone, I cannot be trusted.

Anyone else have that problem? I don't know how to deal with this.

I am 38 years old and am still treated like a child. I get multiple calls from my family either talking about nothing or wanting to know what I did all week besides working and getting no answers. Because I have nothing. I doom scroll and watch videos. And yet they don't go "Is there anything we can do?" or show any sort of vulnerability. They always feel the need to lord over me. I am the youngest son there for I am lesser than them.

And honestly I find myself more and more alienated and more unable to handle conversation. Therapy is not helping. My therapist only seems to care about my employment. Even though I fear for my coding job, she says it will all work out as she naively believes "programmers will always find work". Look at all the layoffs and say that's true.

I was told as a child I was bright and I would be successful. Instead I was thrown into a collapsing world. Success is all about who you know and being born in the right country. If you are smart, you get no help. You get a pat on the head and bad performance reviews because you never ask for help since you were taught it's a sign of lack of intelligence.

My greatest dream is to be able to just lock myself in a room and eat pizza and ice cream until I bloat. I was put in a collapsing and burning world through no fault of my own. I want to consume and give nothing back. If you are truly concerned about me, then BEG to be allowed to help me. Wail "Oh you poor unfortunate man, what can we do?". Praise me, make me believe your praise and MAYBE I will enjoy life enough to contribute.

Every where you look, regardless of nation, ideology, etc, you see the same refrain:

"Build your community."

"Help you and yours".

"Help you family, whether its biological or found"

And these messages are all pervasive. We see more and more movies glorying criminals but it's ok because they are "family". Anti heroes, doing stuff for "their crew". Factionalism tearing the world apart.

And we vilify those who don't conform to this vision as zealots and psychopaths. Inspector Javert is vilified as a thug for being willing to arrest his family, to chase down a poor unfortunate man who stole a loaf of bread, and brand him a coward for killing himself when he sees his principles were wrong, instead of dedicating the rest of his life to helping others. We vilify people like Stannis Baratheon, who still mutilated a smuggler who saved their lives for being a smuggler because one thing didn't invalidate the other and fought brutally to gain a throne he didn't even want because he HAD to.

But it is the very act of deciding one group of people, just for sharing our DNA, our place of birth, etc, is inherently better than others. We should strive to erase it all. To admit that our mother is not better than the bum on the street. That a person of your skin color is exactly the same as one who is not.

The only thing that matters is moreality. Does that person hurt others? Those who do bad things are worse than those who do. Those who cannot help everyone, nost just a few, are worth less than those who do. It's that simple.

We are all cogs. We are all ants. And isn't that glorious?

I never witnessed it in my entire life. I moved through several countries and never witnesssed it.

My parents alienated us from our extended family and they refuse to deal with us.

I never knew my neighbors.

I once did volunteering and felt like I was being taken advantage of. Just ignored and used for free labor. And the people who we helped all just took and left.

More and more other people just talk about noise. Either delusions of a better time, stuck in whatever they are obsessed with. They don't want to talk to me. They want to talk at me. Like everyone has a lecture they want to give me. Lectures of utter irrelevance, like I was a child.

And it all seems to be accelerating. People stuck in their micro tribes spiraling to oblivion.

I don't know what to do.

No where is safe.

There is nothing.

I got this speech thrown at me by my own therapist. I am just too anxious to even apply given all that’s going on and wouldn’t know where to look anyway. But to think that someone sees my distress and thinks this is useful is laughable. Do you agree?

I find myself simply unable to find anything to talk about. Even my interests. More and more speaking sounds like noise to me.

People's analysis is so prosaic and repetitive. People talk about events that everyone goes through. Current event discussion that is simply repeating stuff I can read in the news. Info dumping about their interests. All so boring. Nothing I cannot learn outside of text format.

And they all demand you listen. They don't care if I don't say anything. Sometimes people say they like me being there. Why? I feel like a prop. I don't need props. If you have nothing interesting to contribute, I don't need your presence.

My family is getting particularly desperate. Asking those sorts of questions like "Any more news?" "What have you done this weekend?" "Anything else to say?" "Everything good?". They just don't get the hint I don't have anything to say. They feel like people always have something to say, even if it's talking for the sake of talking. I don't need that. I want information that is relevant to my life.

How do I fix this? Should I fix this?

I find myself simply unable to find anything to talk about. Even my interests. More and more speaking sounds like noise to me.

People's analysis is so prosaic and repetitive. People talk about events that everyone goes through. Current event discussion that is simply repeating stuff I can read in the news. Info dumping about their interests. All so boring. Nothing I cannot learn outside of text format.

And they all demand you listen. They don't care if I don't say anything. Sometimes people say they like my company. Why? I feel like a prop. I don't need props. If you have nothing interesting to contribute, I don't need your presence.

How do I fix this? Should I fix this?

12YOE and I have basically been doing nothing but tiny tweaks for the past two months.

It seems this always happens in every job I get. I fall into some lame niche and get stuck there. And it's never something challenging. It's something people don't want to do. I have the attitude of "never say no" in the vague hopes it gets rewarded. It doesn't.

I am also afraid of jumping far outside my comfort zone. Every single time I did, it caused procrastination, bad code, failure.

I keep seeing all these claims about how "knowing how to make software that scales" is invaluable. I have no idea how to do that or where to look.

My CV is basically C++ and Python. I can barely explain what I have been doing for the past 4 years of my career.

AI will make me obsolete.

I can't start a new business. I don't know what to make, or what to sell.

I have no idea where to pivot. I am an engineer. At least it's what I trained to be. I don't know if I am or if I am a fraud.

If I cannot be given this, someone please give me the means to end.