Beginning Again

It's a new year (okay plus 5 months and 14 days), and I've decided to redo my website for what at this point must be the 3000nth time. Additionally, this time around I've decided to just start fresh, and let my collection of old posts fade into the ether (maybe they're on the Wayback Machine, idk).

What follows on this website is going to be my forays re-entering the tech world, in these strange times of AI, insane politicans, and a list of global crisis as long as the Titanic.

In all seriousness though, I love technology. As much as I struggle with many of the ever-expanding ethical questions being raised throughout this diverse field, I want to do my best to remain generally optimistic and upbeat on my blog.

That being said, I'd feel remissed if I didn't touch on some of the struggles I've had working in this industry in the past. For context, I've held roles as a web developer (back-end and front-end positions), a game developer, and as a coding teacher in various capacities.

I believe the biggest hurdle I faced while working as a coder was self-regulation. As somebody diagnosed with ADHD (by a doctor, not by Dr. Google), I have a particularly difficult time not with my overall attention (as many would believe), but with choosing the direction of that attention. In other words, it's hard for me to pick and choose what I focus on. In a single word, procrastination.

The majority of the jobs I held in the past were remote and quite loosely managed. As long as you were delivering on deadlines and billing accordingly, everyone was happy.

While this might sound like an idealistic job situation for many, my struggles with self-regulation would frequently shift this freedom into a rapid bellyflop into high octane nightmare-fuel. I'm passionate about coding, and almost always had side projects of high personal value on the go... Which I would work on relentlessly, until I realized I had a huge feature or bug fix due for work the next morning.

This led to more anxiety fueled all-nighters than I care to count, and therein propelled me directly into the side of the mountain that is Bi Polar disorder. Type 1 Bi Polar to be specific, which for those unaware, primarily grapples with a devestating mental state known as mania.

Mania is a weird thing to explain to another human who hasn't experienced it. On the one hand, it feels incredible. A rushing torrent of ideas and extravagent ambitions flows through you, and you feel genuinely invincible. On the other hand, your judgement vanishes entirely. This leads you to make terribly poor decisions that you wouldn't otherwise make in a million years.

In my case, I've lost relationships, jobs, homes, and all of my money and possesions many times over. Mania is next to, if not, impossible to treat without medical intervention (going to a psych ward) and when I finally do regain control, it feels like I've hit the reset button on life.

Starting from square one is hard, and gets harder the older I get.

So suffice to say that maintaining a high-tech career in writing software has been challenging, and my resume is full of gaps that are hard to explain...

And with that:

To anyone who has had the misfortune of dealing with me in this state, either professionally or personally... I want to take this moment to apologize to you from the bottom of my heart. I'm sorry.

Okay, phew. That was a chunky cup of stew to navigate through, but we did it! If you're still reading at this point I thank you. 💖

Now for the bright side!

I've decided that I don't want to give up on my ambitions of working in tech, and have recentered my sights on the field of cybersecurity. I've been fascinated by the concept of pen-testing for as long as I can remember, and am actively taking steps towards hopefully one day working as a pen-tester.

A pen-tester is basically an ethical hacker. Companies hire pen-testers to attempt to break into their digital systems and infrastructure from the outside, and report any vulnerabilities they find.

It all sounds incredibly exciting!

In pursuit of this, I've recently begun the Google Cybersecurity Certificate on Coursera. Graduating from the program grants you a discount on the CompTIA Security + Exam, which as I understand it is a credential many employers look for when hiring security personnel.

Completing this certificate program is also of high personal significance to me, because as it stands I'll be 33 soon and have yet to complete any post-secondary education (and not for lack of trying).

Hopefully this was a somewhat cohesive train of thought, and if you've made it to the end, I applaud you! If you're interested in following this journey of mine, please consider subscribing to my mailing list below (I won't spam you, promise).

Until next time,

Kirk M. (@saricden)