19 September 2025 |
Ever since I was a kid I just remember this feeling that I was not important. I just felt that I was background noise, empty space, passing wind.
I would try to connect with friends and never felt that they were interested in me as a human being. Just what they could get out of me. Whether it was some thing, money, help, conversation, anything, just something I had to offer. Women especially mostly wanted validation. It was never about me as a human being and who I was. It was always something external to my own person, something I had that they wanted.
I don't want to go over the stories now. I don't feel that's important. What is important, however, is something that I discovered. You know, I would always get lost in books because I felt they held worlds inside of them deep enough to sate my curiosity. There was an intimacy there with the characters and the author and the story that made me feel part of something. It's like I'm right there with Eragon riding on Saphira as we make our way to destroy the evil Galbatorix! Or I'm right there in Hogwarts or the Shire taking part in the adventure as a brave, welcome, needed and loved companion. It was a feeling of being part of something more than me. I still love reading to this day for this very reason. It's an escape from real life. Sometimes we need that escape.
I got the same feeling from video games, the same escape. I got the same feeling from anime and movies and YouTube and drugs and porn. My need for this escape just kept getting deeper and deeper as my own life got worse and worse. I realized that these escapes will never solve the problem. The only thing that will solve the problem is work I thought. So I worked as hard as I could. I made oodles of cash and achieved a lot of success in my own right.
None of that helped. What I wanted was to be seen as a human being. Attention, validation, companionship, love. That's what I wanted deep inside. I wanted someone to look at me and think that I am amazing because I am a human being. And because of that I don't need to be worthy of love or acceptance. I am loved because I am. That security of knowing I am a loved human being first before I am needed for what I can provide. Never feeling like this and always having my needs not met is what broke my heart.
Until I discovered computer science. When I am coding I don't have to think about what I bring to the table to keep someone's attention. I just write a program and the computer does what I tell it to do. It's undeniable. I can lose myself in the act of creation. I can just be me, in as many ways as I want. Maybe I want to change the colors, or the font, or the entire language I am using. I don't have to ask for permission, I can just express what I want. The computer doesn't argue or tell me I'm a geek. The computer rewards my patience to understand it with allowing me to express myself better. We get to understand each other. In that moment, I feel seen. Like I am a human being with a will and a right to exist on this planet according to natural law. It's an affirmation that because I can code, I exist.
I code therefore I am.
The computer only asks for understanding. To be patient. To be thoughtful. To be compassionate. To accept the laws of the universe. These are the same things I ask for from other people but I don't get. They just want the reward, never the process. In my exhaustion, I give them what they want so they can go away. So I can get some closure with the fact that human beings are just selfish creatures without a care for anything but themselves. And because of that I will never be accepted, understood or loved for just being a human being. I have to have something to give in return for the affection or the attention that my soul was yearning for.
I know I will always carry this existential pain. And that brings me great misery. My humanity will never be acknowledged. I am passing wind.
But even the wind can buckle a tree. When I code, I create entire worlds. It is my salvation. It is proof that I exist. That I am human. I want to be the best, but I don't need to be. What I need is to create. Like a current over rocks, I want my creativity to flow and express my thoughts solid but smooth to the touch.
If I can't be human, I'll be machine. Just pure expression.