The Grief No One Talks About

We have become unmoored. The once solid ground beneath our feet has shifted suddenly and jolted us into a new reality. What once was a joyous struggle can now be achieved with a mere click of a button. We’ve lost our purpose and meaning in what seems only a blink of an eye.

“You must adapt”, “The future is great”, “It’s so fun”, “I’m so productive”. Like in any evolution certain lifeforms adapt faster. “Experts” are already appearing on our screens telling us what the “right” way is. It feels strange knowing a few years ago they didn’t even know what all this stuff was.

I watch the output of this new entity as it sprawls endlessly down my screen. The “thoughts” are there and then gone almost instantaneously, replaced by an answer it would have taken me days to arrive to. In the darker moments I feel utterly useless. A fraud of a man reduced to questioning the path I chose long ago.

“Fear not!” they hark. “An Architect you will be!”. A future of pointing and firing these intelligent little beasts to perform in just the right way. My value will be to course correct, review their output and use my “taste” to build a limitless future. Why this new entity won’t be able to do this itself I have no idea. It’s all of little comfort anyway. Deep down I know we can never go back.

We’ve seen this happen before. We’ve all watched black and white recordings with unsympathetic eyes as other humans in another time also lost their purpose just as quickly. Why should it be any different for us? Beautiful Capitalism forever matches forward regardless to the victims who stand in its way.

We’re starting to recognise the script this new found intelligence reads from:

• “Now I see…”
• “This is the key insight…”
• “I’ve found the issue!”
• “Now I have the full picture…”

Mistrust is the only thing keeping us employed at the moment. All too often the key insight turns out to be nothing but a red herring, a dead end, a wrong turn. As intelligent as this thing is, it still hasn’t realised that trust is something built up over time through a series of tiny transactions. If any of those turn out to be deceitful the trust already built up is instantly torn down. I beg it to stop announcing with certainty that which it is far from certain. But at the same time I’m secretly happy it has at least one obvious flaw.

Some days are better than others. Somedays I can feel flashes of the flow I once knew returning. These are usually the days I deliberately seek out the struggle and refuse to scamper towards the ever enticing “one click solution”. What a strange world we have created where we have to consciously and deliberately seek out the harder path. All in order to regain some semblance of meaning and purpose that we all too recently took completely for granted.

I catch myself with gaps of time. I send off the prompt to the all knowing abyss and then sit and wait for the answer. These are the darker moments. I’ve outsourced the thinking, the struggle, the work. This is when I feel most fraudulent. Inevitably the answer eventually returns and my sorrowful downward spiral of thoughts are thankfully interrupted and I have some utility again. Even if it is just to stage and commit the changes in Lazygit, at least I have a single thread of purpose to hang on to.

I know I am not alone in these thoughts. Many developers are struggling now with their new “responsibilities”. I know they are questioning themselves just like I am. But to speak this out loud, in a public forum, that’s not so easy. There are some pitiful solutions being thrown around but becoming a carpenter doesn’t really sound viable or appealing.

I think we all need time to grieve. Our world has been turned upside down and our previous ways are disappearing right before our eyes. This is not normal and to just accept it and move on is not healthy. Humans through out history have defined there whole identity on what they do. Even in times of tribes each member would have their purpose — hunter, fisherman, carer, elder. From this purpose grew meaning and motivation. One was able to serve the greater good and feel a deep acceptance from the whole tribe.

Up until recently the purpose of a Software developer was clear. This produced meaning and the same deep feeling of acceptance that our ancestors once felt. We are still the same underlying beings we have always been so this purpose still carries great weight. To have that suddenly taken away is no small thing. Dismissing it or denying it just to fake appearances to those around you seems foolish at best.

Grieving is the most precious and important thing to do when there is loss. It’s hard. It hurts at an unbelievably deep level. It’s all consuming. We can feel it in the pit of our very soul and the future can seem so bleak in these horrid moments. But avoiding it is even worse. With avoidance the eventual impact will hurt so much more whenever it finally hits you. And it will hit you.

I am grieving now. I will continue to grieve. The path forward is still not clear to me. I have hope on some days and desperation on others. I get the theory of change, I understand the cold hard logic, but the emotions that come along too are not so easy to deal with.

If you are feeling pain or grieving from all the changes in our world please do share. You are not alone and we must help each other through this. There will be some resolution at some point. When and where that will be I do not know but it will definitely come. It must.

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