I love art and philosophy and I think categorizing philosophy an art is simply wrong. So wrong I don't think this is even worth the time to think about.

I don't expect to ever want to retire. I took 2022 and 2023 off to do independent research while living on savings.

I didn't find a job because of finances but because of being unbelievably bored and unmotivated after the first year.

The worst part is that the two years subjectively felt like they went by in a blink of an eye. That is not really what you want in retirement with what waits for you at the end.

I took two years off during a job transition in 2010. I’ve been dreaming about it since. I traveled the US with my Subaru and my Trek; I sculpted; I took an Italian class; I took an online astrophysics class; I gardened; I backpacked; it shot by in blink and I hope I can retire before I’m dead and do most of that again.

I am old, the biggest difference from when I was 20 to now is when I was 20 I knew I wasn't going to be the star of my own TV sitcom.

There is this constant barrage of bullshit now. "This 25year old makes $30k a month from a side hustle doing nothing and you can too!".

Life is basically the best it is has ever been but the expectations that came with this are just absurd.

If you think this tech job market is bad you can't imagine the dot com bust and 2002. Imagine graduating college in 2000 and starting the job hunt.

Nasdaq returns by year

2000 -36.84

2001 -32.65

2002 -37.58

-----

2022 -32.97

2023 +53.81