Hi,

Today I want to talk about two feelings I experienced in the last 24 hours. It is nothing rational, just some emotions that took me for some time and then washed away like water in a river. In particular, I want to talk about the feeling of being unfit among others and how I feel demotivated from my environment.

The first emotion is the feeling of unfitness. Yesterday I spent many hours rewriting several pages of this diary. I was in the mood of writing, I was focused and It felt really good, I guess a little writer is growing inside me. I can't help but write honestly.

Since I was enjoying this so much, I thought I could share it. Hence, I started looking for people online with a similar interest. So I searched the web, dedicating my efforts on discord servers since this is where many normies hang out. I found two servers, "The Writing Hub" and "Penpals, Journaling and Stationary", and I began exploring them. I particularly liked the idea of penpals which is the habit of writing to somebody with letters or email. This is something I am fit for: I consume most of my content through mailing lists and blog posts so I am used to long form written content, and I prefer It this way. I can express my thoughts and emotions more clearly through writing, I can take my time to reflect and choose the right words.

In the server's presentations page, people would give a brief description of themselves and their interests. I found many creative people, artists, music lovers, dancers, painters, etcetera. Here is where my self doubts came in. My brain went something like this: "Wow, all these people do like art, music. It must be easy for them to socialize. My main interests are things like UNIX operating systems, like file systems and the Linux's eBPF subsystem…". I felt like I'm too much of a nerd to belong there, and this is one example of more pervasive thoughts in many other areas. I do not have to fit everywhere, yet me being me makes everything feel a little lonely and makes It hard to find a place for me.

However I rationalized my feelings and appreciated more the fact that we are all so different, there is value in interacting with people from distant backgrounds. Thinking about opposite ideas than yours will make you better understand others and your own, It makes us question things we never thought of and refine our reasoning. I reflected on how much I liked what I do, even if it is really unpopular among peers. Sometimes I feel lonely in my journey, but instead of focusing on what I don't have I should think about what I do have.

The second feeling I felt happened just a few hour ago, I was reflecting on how demotivating university has been. When I wanted to go to university I had a strong drive to write good software and give my best, I though this would be a big step up in my programming journey since in high school I knew nobody that had similar interests as me. Yet this was not the case, as often I was the most experienced person in groups. I would see people wibecoding, doing exercises with chat gpt, not even bothering giving the tiniest effort on the software they were writing. I don't judge them, I think of others as I would think for myself and seeing this is not pushing me to improve and give my best. I have to say that not everything is like this, and I am overreacting. I can't help but see what my feelings are telling me and introspect. Yet, It is true that I don't feel pushed to give my best in, say, contributing to open source or participating in community projects. For my internship I was completely on my own, little to no help from my university. I made the best out of it but It would have been fine to just do a small project and call It a day.

From this experience I understand that what I do and where I go is completely up to me, It is my responsibility and I should create my own opportunities. What I talked about today may seem childish and irrational, so are humans. I am happy that I got to think about this tiny things, most of the time I am too focused on what I have to do that I can't find time for myself. Maybe writing this here makes me recognize that I am vulnerable and emotional too.

– Giovanni

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Travel: Ephemeris, Index