A roller-coaster year: Employment, depression, cycling, technology, and an unlikely source of inspiration

Time for another long-overdue post on this barren blog. A lot has happened since my last entry. Shortly after my post on the first chapter of the Qur'an (and 6 months after upgrading my I.T. credentials), I finally got a call from a potential employer. It was an American company that needed a local tech in Toronto for an existing client of theirs that had recently expanded its operations north of the border. I only got a call because the phone number listed on my résumé was the local Toronto number for my sister’s company. Otherwise, since I was still in Lahore at the time, I probably wouldn't have heard from anyone. Realizing this, I immediately jumped at the offer, and within two weeks, I was back in Toronto (accompanied by my younger sister, who was just as eager to leave Pakistan and return to saner, safer Canada), ready to resume my I.T. career.

Working downtown on Adelaide Street was fun, and the start-up that I was supporting seemed to be pretty cool. However, within two months, that company experienced some sort of internal shake-up, and all of a sudden switched from expansion to cost-cutting mode. Since they had begun to lay off their own employees, I knew that an external resource like myself wouldn't be kept on for much longer. I didn't have to wait very long before I was told that my services were no longer required. My employer kept me on for another couple of months doing remote support for people in California, Georgia and Texas, but that wasn't the kind of work I was expecting to do, and it didn't really work out. I was living with relatives at the time, which is a situation that doesn't exactly lend itself to a working from home. I was also the company’s only Canadian employee, and they really didn't do a great job of providing me with the guidance and support that (I’m assuming) their American employees enjoyed. They finally called me on New Year’s Eve and officially laid me off. By this time, my sister and I had moved out of our relative’s house (something that took far too long, thanks to my abysmal, depression-impacted credit score), and had just begun to accumulate furniture, unpack, and settle in for the winter. Far from a stable environment.

The biggest annoyance associated with my job was purely administrative; reporting the hours I worked each day. When your job is split into many separate tickets for many different clients, and when your employer asks you to keep track of the time you spend on each ticket, things can get mighty tricky. This is especially the case when you are required to handle multiple tickets concurrently. If I spent two hours working on three tasks at the same time, how do I report this? To make matters worse, the ticketing system that my employer used, Autotask, is the biggest piece of shit waste of time I have ever seen. It made timekeeping such a frustrating experience that I probably spent more time screwing around with calendar and time widgets than actually doing my job. Its archaic user interface made my life particularly miserable, and definitely compounded my job anxiety. Whatever you do, please stay away from any company that uses Autotask in any facet of their business.

Because of my employer’s administrative fumbles, I wasn't given any benefits like medical coverage (when I asked them about this when they called me to let me go, they said I did have health benefits for the next week, but taking advantage of this didn't seem to make much sense at that point). Their unfamiliarity with Canadian employment practices and their easy-going attitude towards setting me up as a permanent employee meant that I didn't accumulate enough paid hours to qualify for Employment Insurance. This was enough to nudge me into a depressive state, and make me feel rather disillusioned with employment in general.

I had no interest in looking for another company to work for and be mistreated by. In the following months, I eventually mustered up the courage to forge ahead on my own. I printed off some business cards of my own, and tried to convince people to pay me a fairly modest fee to solve their info-tech issues. So far, I only have two clients. Aside from some preliminary improvements to their I.T. infrastructure, their needs haven’t been huge, and so right now, I’m making even less money than I used to make working part-time at Staples for minimum wage back in 2010.

This sort of situation is bound to have a negative impact on mental health, especially over such a prolonged period. My only significant source of relief during this period was my bike. My youngest sister bought me a used bike for my birthday in March, and since then, I have ridden over 4,000 kilometers through the streets of Toronto. I've dropped over 30 pounds along the way, and most of the back and neck pain that plagued my sedentary existence in Lahore has also melted away. I’m in great physical shape, and I’m pretty sure that my legs make up more than half of my body weight right now.

My other source of joy has been the wonderful free-to-play video game, Tribes: Ascend. I've been a Tribes player since 1997, and this most recent incarnation of the franchise, while certainly not flawless, allowed me to hone some long-dormant skills, and acted as a much-needed source of dopamine. It’s a travesty how Hi-Rez Studios, the company behind the game, has largely abandoned it (not unlike Irrational, Vivendi/Sierra and Dynamix did in the past). No other first-person shooter on the market comes close to providing an experience that showcases players’ sheer skill in quite the same way as Tribes. Makes me wanna holler! Since the official North America East servers began kicking people off after the end of every single round, player populations have dropped drastically, and everyone is calling this the end of the franchise. I really hope this isn't so, and would actually gladly participate in some kind of effort to revive the game. An OpenTribes platform would make the global game-o-sphere a much nicer place.

Back to cycling. I was spending about 20 hours per week on my bike, and recorded most of this activity with Strava, the nifty smartphone app that lets you track your running and cycling activity, and participate in challenges to compete with others around the globe. At the height of my cycling efforts this year, I participated in their ‘Monthly Training Series’ (MTS) for August, and wound up logging 1,386 kilometers. Often, I didn't have any money in my pocket during these rides, and on more than a few occasions, I had to walk my bike back home after experiencing mechanical failure of one sort or another. Sometimes these walks were the entire 20 kilometer distance from downtown Toronto to the west-end apartment where I live. Without enough to buy replacement parts as I needed them, or even enough for bus fare, I treated these walks as an opportunity to condition myself both physically and mentally. I’d tell myself that these walks were strengthening muscle groups that aren't used much while cycling, were allowing me to slow down and enjoy the scenery, and if nothing else, were helping me, as they say, ‘build character’. Above all else, these apparent annoyances taught me that while a motorist might be dead in the water in a similar situation, a cyclist always has the option to push his or her vehicle all the way home. Indeed, if you live on an upper floor of your building, you can brag about carrying your vehicle up and down flights of stairs every day.

Being marginally self-employed in the fashion I currently am is a mixed bag. While I don’t have a ton of money (I have exactly one 5 cent piece on my dresser, and its embossed beaver and queen take turns chuckling and sneering at me), I have also learned to enjoy things in life that don’t require currency. I also have more time than most people. Having more time in itself is great, but in my situation, there are a few downsides, too. It gives a depressed person more time to ruminate and feel horrible, whenever that mood decides to take hold. It also makes it very clear that even my most sincere friends don’t share the same temporal luxuries that I do, and that without the company of people one can relate to, even an eternity can feel worthless.

Many of my university friends have dispersed since they graduated, and now live all over the world, doing all the wonderful things that come naturally to their wonderful selves. However, even the ones in Toronto haven’t had a ton of time to chat. And I mean face-to-face. While textual communication is a great thing, it can’t compare with the richness and nuance of a live conversation. Aside from a few planned activities and get-togethers (which are great fun, but don’t set the tone for deep, meaningful conversations), I haven’t exactly had much opportunity to just hang out. My friends are too busy to pay me much mind.

I currently find myself without any real destinations to travel to. Without any money, I can’t even stop at a coffee shop or burger joint. I go for a ride, keep going until I feel tired, and then I just ride back home. The dopamine and physical fatigue keep me from utter despair, but also divert my attention from most things that might improve my overall situation.

Part of the reason that I find myself on my bike so often is that I don’t have a lot of space or privacy at home. Since our youngest sister moved in with my other sister and myself (along with her dog, snake, and three cats), I haven’t been able to focus on anything worthwhile for sustained periods. Just like Sam Roberts, it seems like inhuman beings take up all of my time. I also have this odd sensation of not being sufficiently alone to engage in solitary activities, and feel obligated (to some degree) to coordinate my waking hours with my sisters. Being mindful and respectful of their space, their work schedules, and their belongings can be taxing, especially with so little space to go around.

Furthermore, I feel uncomfortable working on private projects in the same room as other people I know. I think this is because of some unconscious notion of mine that friends and family deserve more of my attention than inert objects, no matter how valuable. Intellectually, I know that this can’t always be true, but something in me might be recalling the many, many times when other people have given a higher priority to their books, notebooks, phones or computer screens than to something I was trying to tell them about, and how horrible these instances made me feel (because (a) the other person failed to show the same enthusiasm about what I was talking about, (b) I appeared less important to them than something that seemed rather trivial to me at the time, and (c) I wound up feeling like I had wasted their time and my own). Even in adjacent rooms, I can sometimes feel (probably imaginary) tendrils of attention creeping towards me, keeping tabs on me. The result is a kind of voluntary paralysis that resembles sneaking back into your room at night when your parents are asleep. Every sound feels amplified because you’re imagining someone else listening, too.

Living on my own, however, simply isn't an option. Even if I had enough money, I wouldn't be able to take care of myself in my current depressed state. I also think that Pakistani men are raised (or raise themselves, perhaps) to rely on the women in their lives in a way that seems – Unfair? Sub-optimal? Brittle? – for both parties, and that despite my rather non-traditional upbringing, this particular social norm has left me underprepared for life on my own. Without the support of my family, and in particular the two sisters I live with, I’d be much worse off today, and that’s if I managed to survive this long at all.

The joy of cycling was interrupted towards the end of August when my bike began to give up on me. I had to swap tires after they began coming apart at the seams. My shifter and brake cables began to snap. The bolt that secured the front shifter cable to my ancient front derailleur also snapped, so I had to replace the entire derailleur. My chain had stretched way beyond what any reasonable cyclist would allow, and that in turn caused irreparable damage to my rear cassette. At various times during the August challenge, I was riding my 21-speed mountain bike as a 7-speed, 3-speed, or single-speed bike. I missed the first week of September entirely because my bike’s chain (which I had to replace) kept coming apart mid-ride. The fools at Bikes on Wheels on Augusta sold me a chain that was at least 3 links too short. I've finally managed to add a few links from my old chain (not the best solution) and my chain is holding firm for the time being, but that week without my bike had a serious impact on my mental well-being.

During July, I had picked up third I.T. client, and had begun working on a simple web development project for him. Communication with him was sparse and unclear, he lived too far away, and I wasn't in the most stable mental or financial situation either. The business relationship went sour, and I never got paid for the last bit of work I did for him. This was towards the end of August, so it coincided with other problems I was facing, like having to pay for bike parts that I could barely afford. This pushed me deeper into Depressionville. This has happened to me in the past; when faced with a seemingly minor setback, especially one attributed to my own inaction, I typically become more or less unresponsive. Even if it’s not true, I feel as though I've let others down, that I have nothing of value to offer to my peers and colleagues. I wind up feeling worthless.

That’s how I felt a couple of Fridays ago on the 5^th, and I spent that evening sharing my misery with my sisters, which I rarely do, just so they knew how I felt. After sleeping off the fatigue associated with this kind of uncharacteristic opening-up, I felt well enough to spend the 30 dollars I happened to earn the day before from a one-off job for a neighbor on a new bike chain, and get my life moving again. However, when I stepped up to my computer to figure out when the bike shop opened, I discovered that one of the animals had chewed up the cord of my fancy gaming mouse. To me, that meant no more Tribes.

I was livid, and I hadn't even had breakfast yet. After letting out a moan of frustration and feeling not a lick better, I found myself punching my bedroom wall, over and over and over again. I stopped when the pain overtook my rage, and a few minutes later, realized that I had managed to do some serious damage to myself. My sister took me to the hospital, and the next couple of nights’ sleep involved some tricky business with my hands propped up on pillows at awkward angles. Additionally, during my fit of rage, I also managed to make my sister feel crappy (on her birthday, no less) by telling her how her animals had destroyed my gear. If I had had something to eat at this point in the day, or if I hadn't had a heart-to-heart with my sisters the night before, I doubt I would have said anything to anyone. I’m the sort of person that refrains from starting conversations that don’t seem to have much point, and even immediately after the fact, this certainly seemed to be one of those cases.

As I mentioned above, I eventually managed to fix my bike chain, and I’m making do with a crappy spare mouse that I have, but I’m still quite far from okay with my situation. I mentioned this in a Facebook status update, and some friends showed support and pointed me to some potentially helpful resources that my depression-addled mind has yet to gain any serious traction with. Even so, some progress is being made, no matter how frustratingly slow.

There was one thing, however, that inspired me to keep trying, and that reminded me of dreams I have harbored for a number of years. Surprisingly, it was Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch. While on the surface these products seem laughably insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and perhaps they are, it’s the level of craftsmanship that they represent that inspired me. The drive to produce something that extends people’s ability to make real progress in the world, instead of creating artificial demand for computer babysitters and device driver diddlers, the way Microsoft’s half-baked product ecosystem has functioned for decades. In my opinion, lot of I.T. jobs simply shouldn't exist, and if every computer were designed as well as a Mac, they probably wouldn't. All of those intelligent computer techs would be using their brilliance to solve problems that weren't so laughably artificial. Nobody should have to troubleshoot SharePoint lists and views for a living, or waste their time wondering why particular fonts screw up some document layouts but not others.

The U2 album that was released at the Apple event added fuel to my fire of hope. It’s an uplifting collection of songs. Being a long-time fan of the band, I downloaded it as soon as I heard that it was a free release, and listened to it non-stop for the next 3 days. If I can keep my words flowing past this single entry, I’ll probably end up writing an entire post on the many different ways that I find these songs to be personally meaningful.

I was inspired, yes, but to do what? Surely I wasn't thinking of starting a company that produces smartphones or computers. Instead, Apple’s product launch reminded me that I was in the ‘wisdom business’, and that wisdom is a self-driven phenomenon that centers around both individual and collective human development. The betterment of humans and the human race is at wisdom’s core.

While it is no secret that Apple is a corporation, and is therefore obligated to turn a profit (which it does exceedingly well), it doesn't appear to be an evil corporation (even without the ‘open’ stance towards development of which Google is an exemplar). The Apple event on the 9^th explicitly positioned the company and its products as drivers of positive change, and whether or not you believe the image that this particular company attempted to project, a more general, underlying idea managed to make an impression on me: good design – design whose simplicity and efficiency allows people to accomplish more and waste less (and maybe even make their efforts enjoyable) – is invaluable. Thoughtful product or process design that identifies and facilitates a small number of good ways to perform a task might appear at first to restrict users' freedom, but if the product or process is truly well-designed, it will in fact save people from having to experiment with all the ineffective, time-wasting ways of approaching that same task. Apple certainly doesn't have a monopoly on good design, but good design does appear to be its greatest strength.

What does this mean for me and my desire to cultivate and encourage the cultivation of wisdom? In short, I have decided to forge ahead, despite being penniless and unwell, and take as many small steps as I can towards promoting wisdom in a concrete, lasting way. Specifically, I intend to do whatever I can to maximize the output and collaborative efforts of academic institutions. While this will one day, I hope, involve me making recommendations on how universities and colleges can improve the efficiency of their administrative staff, those sorts of activities are usually reserved for seasoned educationists. I imagine there aren't many entry-level positions of that sort. However, there are other ways of making significant progress that don’t require me to already be in the thick of academic policy-making.

Initially, I intend to design and produce software that helps post-secondary students make better, more informed decisions regarding their academic career, help them avoid the need to retake courses or spend more time pursuing a diploma or degree than is either necessary or desirable, and in general, make fewer mistakes. I want to make it easy for students to know what they need to do today, this week, this semester, and even further along their academic journey. I want to remove unnecessary surprises that force students to take what we euphemistically call the ‘victory lap’; an extra semester (or two, or five), in order to take courses that they didn't realize they had to take. The cumulative result across all students in one institution (and hopefully, across many institutions over many years) would undoubtedly be staggering. I expect to see lower drop-out rates, and possibly even lower incidence of mental health issues among students. Think about the number of person-years that these sorts of tools can save. Furthermore, this isn't just any group of people being assisted in some mundane activity. People that attend college or university number among the brightest and most motivated, no matter which city or country they belong to. Helping them become the best people they can be sounds like a particularly worthy goal to me.

In a time when evil ideologies and infectious diseases have both become global epidemics that can render entire battalions impotent and helpless, it is brainpower and not firepower that will get the job done in the end. Ideas survive long after the flesh has failed, and they are also more integral to who we are, both as individuals and as a species. Even though I am weak today, I consider this a tiny step towards becoming something more, by helping others do the same. In the coming months, I’ll be collecting and reviewing a bunch of notes that I've scribbled in half a dozen notebooks over half a dozen years, and I hope to be able to present a more cohesive, less inchoate representation of the vision I have of the future of academic administration. Hopefully my life circumstances will improve in tandem, riding this wave of ambition and inspiration. If I accomplish even a tenth of what I hope to, it will be in the service of humanity, and I can’t think of any project more worthy of my time.