Burnt out, just depressed, or is this actually just very hard? Maybe that’s stress, there’s been a lot of that lately. I’ve read somewhere that stress is good in moderation.

A good number of evenings during these past years follow the same pattern. It’s probably more of a sketch than a pattern. Imagine a couch, a bed, wondering around the apartment, a numbing headache, a stream of semi-complete phrases popping out of consciousness, physical exhaustion even though there’s been nothing but sitting all day. A day spent solving some problem, and then another, going to meetings about this or that. Trying to figure out how a system someone spent years building works. “Keep at it” seems like the only action for which there’s energy, but brain is too spent anyway. Problems and puzzles never seem to go away, and they’re all consuming. Feeling of mediocrity doesn’t quite leave, either. When faced with infinitity - in complexity, in scope, in requirements, in ability to repeat the same mistakes - who has a chance to avoid that feeling?

A problem is fixed, another comes up. Two years later you give up and start over, only to go through the same thing all over again. It’s comfortable, being back with your old friends; they now speak a different language and promise a brighter future. The game is solving enough of these problems. Winning looks like getting dealt harder problems to play with in front of a larger audience.

Mornings are more varied, from productive to kicking yourself for inability to focus on the simplest of things. Actually, the kicking usually comes in around lunch.

Often I ask myself if the trade offs are worth it, but then it’s easier to just keep going back. My twenties were spent in front of the screen, for the most part. And so were my teens. Weekends turn into a race to get out, escape, climb, bike, hike, ski, anything to break up the routine. There’s even a verb for this: “to recharge”. So this life really is draining you out.