Where do we go from here?¶

I've gone back and forth on making this blog post for probably a few months now. This isn't the sort of thing I take pride in making really, usually I prefer to make things that are upbeat and have a positive impact. But more and more lately, I've really just been asking myself that one simple question. Where do we go from here?

I've never really had a firm grasp on a desired future of mine. As a mid teenager, whenever I was asked what I wanted to do in the future, it was always answered with something vaguely computer related, usually along the lines of "software". Honestly, since then, the answer still hasn't changed - if anything, I'm now more uncertain than ever. And that's not because I've lost heart in the subject area, I'm currently doing more work in software than I've ever done before, learning new things pretty much daily, seeing real impacts in real time of the works I've put out. It's not burnout, because even though I'm pretty tired, I've still got that drive to create stuff and solve problems. It's not worries regarding skill-set etc, I've been told time and time again I'm working above the level of people who work in the subject area (by peers) and that to this day I've still got quite the spark. Clearly, I'm good at and passionate about what I do,

So what is it?

Well, everyone grows up. As that number ticks up, so does the number of responsibilities you get. Money starts joining the thought stream. Your social circle fragments, deteriorates, and tightens as natural events happen and people start having less time to socialise. You take education further, and eventually go into work. You know the tale. It's the one you're raised on. The "work hard, get a little money, be comfortable, live a good life" one.

Well, every single day I realise that tale is a lie more than anything. I think it used to be true, but I'm not sure it is anymore.

Look, 2025 is coming to a close, and I've never felt this hopeless in my life. Even when I was dancing a mental tightrope in my mid teens every other week, it was never this bad. I still had future prospects.

Now, I'm in the future. Those prospects are still prospects. I did well in school, always getting above average grades (sometimes by quite a margin) despite so many cards being stacked against me, and I'm now studying further at university. I'm on a three year course to get a bachelors of science, previously studying cybersecurity, and more recently computer science. I'm paying £9,250 a year (so £27,750 total) to study at my university, and then I'm receiving a further roughly £5,000/yr loan on top of that (£15,000 over 3 years, for a total loan amount of £42,750 when I finish university). And thus far it is one of the biggest regrets in my life. It has really highlighted to me that everything in the world right now is run as a for-profit business, in selfish interests, not in the interests of bettering everyone. Everything has a price tag and for whatever reason that price tag only goes up.

Open indeed and scroll for hours. You can only find places that require a drivers' license, or require that you can lift heavy loads (it turns out they do actually check this), and that you have a flexible schedule. Every single listing you see either lists no wage, a competitive one, or lists the minimum one. Hell, you might even find listings that have all of that and require a MASTERS DEGREE. Apply to a few dozen of them, hear from none of them, get rejection emails 3-24 months later (has actually happened to me). Of course, all of these places are so busy and getting so many applicants that they can't possibly provide you with feedback, and they make you out to be a naive fool for wanting it. Careers advice events and advisors always give me some BS about being active on social media, but honestly I'd rather be hungry than have my employment built on top of what is basically entrepreneur LARPing on the business version of Facebook. I mean, I've got a good profile set up anyway, but now i can't even access it because linkedin throws a server error at me whenever I log in. whatever.

So, there's no jobs. Great. That's fine, I'm still in university, and luckily I was smart enough to save enough cash to be able to cover rent this year. Unfortunately, I only had enough for this year, so next year I can't rent again and will need to go back to commuting 4-6 hours a day. Oh, and I'll also lose a significant number of job opportunities when that happens, because nobody's hiring in the suburbs. Funny how that works. Need money to get money. I was raised being told that getting a university degree was basically the solution to getting a good job, but now that I'm half way finished, I'm now being told that actually university degrees are useless now, and it's experience that matters. How do I get experience if I can't even get in on qualifications in the first place?

So, that's not great - I don't see any flourishing employment opportunities in the future. At this rate I won't even be able to rent anywhere until I'm nearly in my thirties, let alone own a house. Speaking of which, my parents' house has over doubled in value since they bought it, including inflation adjustments. They were around the same age I am now when they bought it if memory serves, and currently my largest investment is a minifridge. Woo.

Obviously my financial situation isn't doing too great, but surely there must be other good things happening. What about my social life? Well, the romantic relationships I had in high school ended years ago now, and my social circle got harshly culled repeatedly in the transitions from primary school -> high school -> college -> university. I could probably count the number of people I'd consider friends on two hands, maybe even one, but that alone isn't bad. However, I can count on precisely zero hands how many people I'd consider myself close with. I once again find myself in a situation where I don't trust anyone enough to exchange secrets, nor have anyone to reach out to for support despite my mental health being in a downwards flat spin. After all, I can't expect people around me who have barely scratched the surface of stuff to be able to support me when even paid professional help has failed to do so repeatedly. Social events I can go to are scarce, mainly because nobody can really afford to go out. It costs a fortune to go anywhere - pubs charge a fiver or more for a pint, you'll be priced out of the room if you go to a restaurant or cafe, you aren't allowed to hang around in commercial spaces unless you're a paying customer, and since it's the end of the year it's too cold to just go sit in a park. And even when I do meet people at social gatherings, it's exceptionally hard to connect with anyone because I'm spending so much time calculating how best to approach the situation to get the best chance of walking away with new relationships, that I fail to actually engage or do something stupid and end up making it awkward and never seeing those people again. Best case we add each other on Instagram and then never talk again.

Moderately concerning now; no money, few friends, unlikely to improve in the near future. But oh boy, it gets worse.

When I lived at home, my parents insisted on having the news on daily, and it was horrible. Every single day there was something new about people who had died, bills were going up, politicians were doing something stupid again, or there was some new demographic we were supposed to pin all our issues on and be angry at for a while. Hearing that shit every single day while you're already struggling to find a reason to keep going is literally the opposite of what you want, and it got to me so much that I would end up going for a walk near enough every night between 7pm and 10pm just to avoid the constant barrage of news. Even if I could block out the TV with my headphones or airpods, I'd still be able to hear it during quiet periods in songs or whatever, and there was nothing that'd block out the sound of them making comments about the news, so I still ended up hearing it anyway. When I moved out, I uninstalled the news app from my phone, god rid of my syndication feeds, and started blocking any source of live news that popped its head up. For the first time in years I thought I might finally start being able to cope with things because I wasn't constantly being reminded of how much everything sucks right now. But of course, even if you dig your head in the sand, the tide still pulls. Likewise, news still happens. Inevitably I still received news one way or another, and it still makes me weep knowing there's just so much hatred in the world. I genuinely don't know if it was like this when I was younger, but it feels like every year people just get more and more hateful, pointing fingers at anyone different than them and blaming them for all of the issues in the world. Queer people, disabled people, old people, young people, immigrants, the poor, those claiming benefits, the overworked, the comfortable. It's like clockwork; a new demographic every couple months, on a cycle. Basically anyone who isn't putting green paper in the pockets of the broadcasters is to blame. Funny that. And then you go online, and see exactly the same leaf, but just a different side. There's a rampant amount of bigotry online now. Racism, homo/transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, etc - it's at a point now that I can open a comment section and expect to see bigotry in the comments at the top now. Hell I've received an unjust amount of abuse just for having pronouns in my bio or display name in places online from accounts I've literally never even interacted with!

So with all of this in mind, it really makes me wonder: where do we go from here? In complete honesty, I don't know if I even want to anymore. It is clear to me that the core values that I had baked into me when I was growing up aren't relevant anymore. "Treat others how you want to be treated" and "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" are clearly just concepts of the past, and as I've taken to saying recently, everything needs to happen all at once, all the time, always. The future I hoped to have is no longer anything but a concept, a dream that floats further away by the hour. My efforts to do things for the greater good are clearly just in vain because anyone who isn't at the top now has to climb over each other to keep the lights on and food on the table, so why even bother anymore?

And sure, be the change you want to see in the world. I've always said that too. But really, and I mean honestly, what can you do anymore? Petition? Those just go in the bin. Protest? You can't, it's illegal now. Hell trying to oppose any new law that is going to be used for oppression and surveillance gets you labelled as a woman-beating paedophile, so why bother even believing in anything other than what the government says is right? Why hold opposing views? Why think for yourself at all? Why aren't you sat at home watching ads for our multi-billion dollar net-worth overlords?

Maybe the future I was once promised is dead. Maybe it's never coming back. And I'm growingly unconvinced that it's worth fighting for anymore.

But sure. I'm just young and lazy. I'm still barely more than a kid, my age still ends in teen, what would I know. Maybe I should just shut up and get a cheaper cellular plan so that I can buy a house and not have to live with my parents at 25. I'll never do anything remarkable, I'm not special, I should just get in line and be happy with what I've got.

TL;DR: everything sucks now and it's everyone's fault and we should just start over again.