the great analog regression of 2026 is so realWe’ve officially reached peak digital fatigue. While tech overlords are busy trying to inject AI chatbots into our literal toothbrushes, the collective vibe has shifted entirely to *let me rot in peace*. We don't want 'smart' anymore. We want dumb tech. We are actively paying hundreds of dollars on eBay for pixelated pink iPod Nanos and flip phones just to feel something again.The modern aesthetic is literally carrying a device that doesn't even know what 'the cloud' is. No algorithms feeding you brainrot at 3 AM, no push notifications, just raw, unadulterated 2007 vibes. If you need me, I’ll be spending three hours trying to side-load a single MP3 onto a device that hasn't seen a firmware update since the Obama administration.zero notificationsmaximum mysterypure dopamine-free living
The 2026 urge to chuck your hyper-optimized AI smartphone into a local body of water and buy a 2004 Motorola Razr.We’ve officially reached peak digital exhaustion. My phone now has three different AI assistants fighting for my attention, auto-summarizing my friends' group chats into "action items," and predicting my mood based on my scroll speed. I do not want action items from my group chat. I want to hear gossip and send reaction memes in 144p resolution.That is why the Neo-Luddite aesthetic is absolutely eating right now. People are literally buying vintage iPod Nanos and brick phones just to feel something again. We don't want seamless integration; we want friction. We want to spend 10 minutes typing a single text using T9 predictive text while staring at a pixelated screen that doesn't track our eye movements.The Vibe: Blurry, flash-photography photos of disposable cameras.The Reality: Getting lost in a grocery store because you don't have GPS, but feeling like an indie movie protagonist while doing it.The Goal: Peace. Absolute, un-monetized peace.If you need me, I’ll be trying to figure out how to sideload MP3s onto a device that charges with a proprietary cable from 2006. Do not contact me unless it's via carrier pigeon.
If you are reading this you can look at the date of when I first started this blog. This is kind of a summary that mixes the past, the present, and stuff that has happened since I last posted. I have a lot to talk about and I really hope this helps someone out there.
Let me begin.
On Portals of Stability
You can’t function in this industry if you do not figure out a way to create a stable life for yourself. It does not have to be fun. It does not have to be wealthy. It does not have to be full of amazing people. It just has to be stable enough where you can focus on completing a specific goal at a specific time and not have that compete with anything else.
So I recognize that you could be homeless but totally teach yourself how to code because if you have access to a library’s computer system and a dedicated time every day, all you need to do is show up. Things get a little bit more complicated if you have serious responsibilities to take care of or if you get really really really sick.
Portals of stability are important because motivation runs out. Let’s say you gain enough skills with programming to enter the workforce and get some damn good job offers. But you don’t have a stable home situation for recovering from the stresses of life. Even though you have finally arrived at your goal of working in tech in a job based on your skills, you don’t have the emotional support you need to survive.
All the women I know in tech that I would consider to be mentors and beloved friends have burnt the fuck out. I’m looking at them because they kind of represent a future that I can step into and I’m really thinking about... how I can be here without destroying myself. And that’s something that skills like programming don’t address. I don’t know what the answer is but I do know the difference between the women who burnt the hell out and eventually circled back and the women who did not is that the survivors figured out how to create stability by pursuing freelance situations where they did not have to be exposed to a daily violence present in a lot of tech workplaces. But they had to do a LOT to get the point of where they can pull that off. They had to be exposed to a lot of mental fuckery and sometimes physical violence. I don’t know if I have that in me for that specific field and yet I know I have no choice but to stay here.
On How to Reconfigure an Unstable Life
So my life has been highly unstable almost since I was a kid. I kept running into these patterns where I’m already working under conditions that are set up against me. I last longer than I am expected to, but I still end up failing because I never had the resources I needed to begin with.
Finally, it clicked one day that instead of doing this cycle that feels like a constant start, stop, start stop, start stop, brakes and pedal at the same time movement... I need to just rearrange my life.
This meant getting rid of people.
This meant re-evaluating what time is to me.
This meant thinking about what I’d be upset with the most if I knew I was going to die this year without completing something.
This also meant letting emotional weights go - forgiving people, acknowledging trauma, acknowledging things I suck at but have too much pride to publicly admit, forgiving myself, giving myself time to physically heal and emotionally heal and breath - really breath.
This also meant finding a job that works with me even if its not the job others think I should have. In other words, money is not everything if it constantly gets in the way of completing whatever the hell it is you want to complete.
This also meant qualifying advice because most advice given (including possibly my own in this post) is fucked up, bad, and doesn’t relate to what you are actually going through. My mentors in tech come from backgrounds so vastly different from me that at a certain point they just could not relate. The economic conditions, the social conditions, etc., its just too wide of a gap sometimes when shit hits the fan. So I found that usually I was better off trusting my own gut instincts then doing the “right” thing and seeking the opinion of someone who supposedly has been there before me. There were exceptions but the exceptions where advice actually fit were so rare that I can count them on three fingers.
This meant recognizing distractions. I have a digital addiction. I’ve been dealing with for the past couple of months. What I’ve been doing to recover since I definitely don’t have the money to get professional help is deleting apps and leaving my phone behind - sometimes in my car, sometimes at home. I gave up facebook because that was the worst one. I deleted LinkedIn which I hated because of its dark patterns anyway. I reduced my twitter use dramatically. But what actually has worked best is deleting apps during the week and installing them on the weekend plus monitoring when I feel the urge to use an app. Its always to push back something that I don’t want to feel. I also did a serious spring cleaning which was very helpful but also very intense because as soon as I got rid of a crapload of stuff a bunch of memories that had been buried underneath rose to the top and I had to deal with them with no place to run away. So yeah... it has been an intense emotional rollercoaster since the last time I posted.
This meant also recognizing there is a spiritual element to this for me, that I won;t get into online because its really personal but if anyone reading wants to know I will gladly share. I do believe that sometimes stagnation and resistance is psychic in nature. The relationships we have with people impact us in ways we can’t always imagine....the things our parents and friends say....what they do and do not think we are capable of....the lies we tell ourselves both to make us feel better as well as to tear us down - all of that has a spiritual impact.
So to summarize how to restructure your life to pursue what you want:
Get a job that gives you the time you need to make shit above the money you desire. If you can’t sacrifice your job you are going to have to come up with a hell of a plan. Maybe save money for a year or two and take a break from the world. It worked for one woman. She saved for three years, then taught herself how to code in one year. She made it but damn she gave up a LOT to pull that off. You have to recognize your sacrifices but a job that is on the schedule YOU NEED is the best thing you could ever give yourself.
Remove people who don’t support you. Find people who are like you or who are where you want to be in the future. You literally become who you hang out with. So if you currently are trying to learn how to code and you do not know any programmers, you are in danger. Find people online, offline, doesn’t matter, just find a person who also is doing what you are doing, and get to know them well enough where if you had a question you could hit them up for help.
Don’t learn to code for money unless you like learning ( I do). This is a life long learning career where you will never stop updating and upgrading your skills. It's not like how some college degrees USED to be where once you get it, you are set, and you are just running a business that has already been established and going through the motions. It doesn’t work that way. There’s always a new protocol, a new best practice, a new language, etc. Just get started and once you start don’t stop if you can avoid it.
Give yourself time to heal. Sometimes we don’t know we are sick, even physically sick. Stress can mask a fucked up situation. Figure out the best way for you to chill out and then examine what the heck is really going on with you.
If you think you are battling some serious demons, deal with those demons before they grow and decide to force you to deal with them. A lot of my friends had breakdowns after graduating from college because there was nothing to distract them from dealing with the shit that was always calling for their attention.
Read the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. He talks about resistance a lot. He also helps make you feel better when you learn that it takes some people years to overcome it. Where Pressfield is helpful is putting you in the mindset of a pro - like ok you know this bullshit is going to head your way and its going to get between you and what you want to do. Here is how to hold on tight and not completely give up. Here is how to figure out a path to finishing. My only complaint with the book is that sometimes finishing is not the best use of your time which leads me to the last thing I’ll mention.
Develop a way to know whether or not something is worth your time or you are cutting yourself short. Sometimes people stop working on projects because they get too hard. But sometimes people stop working on projects because life is too short and there are other things they value more. I’m of the belief that as long as whatever you are pursuing is something you wouldn’t mind dying while in the pursuit of, you should be ok. Yes I do mean dying in the pursuit of. If you know you would be upset at someone finding you slouched over a keyboard, dead, learning how to code instead of... spending time with your kid, writing the book you really want to write, living abroad, etc., don’t do it. But if you know you'd’ be ok with someone finding you dead over a keyboard busting your ass to learn how to code because this is something that actually means a LOT to you and is part of your life... that’s beautiful. I truly do mean that.
Another way to think of number 7 is in terms of flow. You want to set up your life in such a way where you do more of the things you want to do then don’t want to do. I’m not talking about eating chocolate cake and pizza all day. I’m talking more along the lines of... if you are a people person and you enjoy talking to people, your everyday work should involve that. If you like solving puzzles your everyday work should involve that. If your everyday job does not, this means you aren’t in flow with your life. And who wants to be out of flow with their fucking life?
Anway as for me and what I have been up to...
Working on stuff, using the skills I got from freecodecamp based on how far I got at the time. I’ve restarted it three times now. And each time I say it will be the last but nope. Haven’t pull that off. But if I took a gaming perspective to it, I will say that each time I dive back into freecodecamp I take away a little bit more. So maybe for some learners, the process of restarting is much more similar to starting from a game. You take in as much as you can stand for the moment, then go off into the world, use the skills you do have, and when you are finally ready to take on more - because your life is finally stable or you just feel its time - you do.
I hope this is helpful for someone out there. I’m kind of writing this to myself wishing I could send this to my past. I’m really grateful for the job I currently have. While its not glamorous it allows me time and time is the most precious thing in the entire world.
