Curiosity. I can never stop living if I still have curiosity for what the next day brings.

After a period of extreme burnout I started to explore different meditative techniques and, as part of that exploration, read the Bhagavad-gita.

Greatly paraphrashing for the sake of brevity, but the idea that has guided me since then is that we cannot help but take some action or perform some work. At the very least we need to eat, but to eat we need to get some food and cook it. We need to get shelter from the elements. You know all the basic stuff. Ok, so let's say we have a job in order to satisfy just the basic requirements to stay alive. Do we work just for that reason alone? No! Doing so traps us into this vicious materialistic cycle. A dreary life of working and paying bills and buying things that please our senses but are ultimately unsatisfying.

So, we need to work, but working for even the barest of material benefit is a trap so what to do? The answer is work with detachment. Work because you know you have to and you like what you do, but that's it. Break the connection to the material outcomes of work. Your work needs to transcend materialistic concerns.

If you are so inclined religiously you work for the satisfaction of God, work is itself an offering. Your work transcends, then, the materialistic trap.

If you are more atheistic then perhaps take the attitude that human society as a greater good needs as many of us to Do The Right Thing. Scientific studies show we are social creatures and the good positive contributions we make invariably help others, even if we don't see it. Even if we're just installing POS software at a chain restaurant along a busy freeway. Even such a mundane endeavor is a glorious celebration of simply Being!

Great LLM impression! ChatGPT said nearly the same thing to me the other day, and it was quite annoying. This isn’t annoying exactly. What would you call it? Let’s delve. Shall we delve?

"Sanity has nothing directly to do with the way you think. It’s a matter of presenting yourself as safe. Little old men wander around London hallucinating visibly, but no one gets upset. The same behaviour in a younger, more vigorous person would get him shut away. A Canadian study on attitudes to mental illness concluded that it was when someone’s behaviour was perceived as ‘unpredictable’ that the community rejected them. A fat lady was admiring a painting at a private view at the Tate when the artist strode over and bit her. They threw him out, but no one questioned his sanity—it was how he always behaved."

From Impro by Keith Johnstone

In my deeper psychosis, asking myself “What can I do with this/How can I work around it?” is literally impossible. I am too busy running down the street secretly taking pictures of people who I think are agents from some unknown organization.

So there is a limit to this therapy.

If this treatment is “surprising”, it might point to a unskilful way of conceptualizing the disease in the first place.

I wonder how many people make things worse for themselves by worrying that they’re going crazy, which ends up feeding the cycle.

As opposed to “What can I do with this/How can I work around it?”

Giving people agency and making them know that they don’t need to own every random voice that comes into their head is nice. Even for non-psychotic folks.

Myself I am schizotypal which means I have unusual experiences. For instance things like Ouija boards and dowsing rods work really well for me even though I don't believe in them at all (and actually have all the reason to be an arch-reductionist)

For a while though I practiced a kind of visualization I called "shapeshifting" which has recently turned into a project to be possessed by a fox spirit because I found out that everywhere there are foxes people have been getting possessed by fox spirits so why can't I do it? (No need to explain it in terms of science, reconcile it with western approaches to religion, none of that...)

I had it come in and take over my standing reflex (the first thing it does) we said a few words and then I was left with the message that I was not in good enough shape and I could get hurt doing this (not like a serious injury but sprains and strains, yes, to express itself it will ask more of my body than I do.

I'm going to have to talk about my goals with a trainer next week, I don't think I'm going to come completely clean that a fox sent me.

How do you expect to be successful at anything without being somewhat social?

Long time freelancer here (decades). I've gotten 99% of my contracts through word-of-mouth. You will get better long-term results than simply grinding through job boards (which you should still do--you never know). You will want to do two things:

1) Cultivate your existing network. Just the other day I reconnected with a friend I haven't seen in several decades. Guess what? He just so happened to be a software dev, and needed another dev to help him with a project. This is just one of many, many stories I have. Call or email people to see how they're doing. Even better, meet up with them for coffee or a meal. This doesn't have to be mercenary; you're probably already doing those things. But start reaching deeper into your network.

2) Build your your network by meeting others in your field and/or potential customers in person (e.g. at user groups, meetups, tech talks, etc.). Talk about what you do and love to do. Presumably that involves your skills that you want to get work in.

Finally, be consistent and reliable and communicate clearly.

As for selling yourself when you're more of a generalist, I wouldn't worry too much about this yet. The key will be when you're presented with a job opportunity that leans in one direction (e.g. 90% dev, 10% management), and you'll have to decide how far you're willing to bend to fit it. But right now you're just getting the word out.