Folks who know me, or who have been following my posts here or on social media¹, know that, after a lot of years of hard work, good planning, and truly monumental luck, last year I found myself in a position to take an extended break from my career. As a decision it was probably one of the most significant ones I’ve ever made, and it was far from an easy one, as I knew I’d be walking away from a lucrative career working with some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met. But after twenty years at the same company, and a lot of soul searching, I knew that it was time for a change, and rather than immediately jump into a new opportunity, I decided it was better to take some personal time to unwind, reflect, and eventually re-enter the work force with more purpose and intention.

Now, well over a year in, it feels like I made that decision only yesterday. Certainly, fairly early on I noticed just how quickly time can fly, but even then I don’t think I appreciated how short this break would feel fourteen months in. And while, yes, I went in with a lofty list of goals and only achieved a few, I can honestly say there’s little I would do differently.²

At the beginning I genuinely assumed I’d eventually get so bored that going back to work would feel like a relief. Certainly, during past extended periods of time off (e.g. over Christmas), that was my experience.

And yet, rather than boredom, I discovered how freeing it is to spend time doing things both meaningful and yet outside any traditional definition of work, and how our western sense of self as being inherently tied to the work we do prevents us from seeing the many other ways that we can build and create and have a positive impact on others outside that narrow perspective.

Being a builder

I was recently talking to a local entrepreneur about work they were doing³, and through that conversation I was reminded of something deeply fundamental to my personality: I’m a builder, and find value and purpose in the act of creating.

The narrow neoliberal view of building would center around the monetary value of the things we build, with the ultimately goal being to capture as much value for oneself.

So if you were to ask me to identify things I’ve created over the past year, I could take that narrow view and come up with a pretty nice little list:

• Replacing our ailing kitchen faucet
• Replacing our bathroom sink after it unexpectedly cracked
• Building my long-planned garage work table
• Converting an old corner china cabinet into a mini greenhouse
• Replacing the screen on my DS Lite
• Publishing some updates to my old NetHack DS Port
• Knitting so very many socks
• Writing a toe-up sock knitting 101 guide
• Raising over $2,500 for the Tour Alberta for Cancer

And that’s ignoring some little private projects I’ve been plugging away at, including some tools to manage our budget, and the start of a DAP implementation for Android/ADB.

Not too bad, right?

But this list elides so many other examples of how this time has allowed me to build in ways that can’t be easily measured by dollars or productivity gains.

Other ways to build

I never would have predicted this ahead of time, but in hindsight it’s so obvious: simply being around and available, any time I’m needed, has made it that much easier for me to be the kind of supportive friend, husband, and son that I want to be, and in that way to build on those essential relationships in my life.

For example, earlier this year a very close friend found themselves facing their own personal crisis that culminated in their taking some time off to work through their own difficulties. During that time I was able to be there, immediately, and on their terms, to provide advice or a sounding board or simple companionship⁴.

Similarly, late last year and early this year we had a family member experiencing some health difficulties, but because I was not working, it was much easier to be there, supporting both that family member as well as all those around me who were doing their part as well.

Meanwhile, my wife and I have been able to spend so much wonderful time with two of or nieces because, again, we can accommodate their crazy schedule and be there on their terms.

I’ve also been able to spend more time with my mom (though, if I’m being honest, still not enough…), who, being retired, has a lot more unstructured time on her hands. Being open to her just popping by any time, or going out to visit on any day, and not just the weekends (which are, for a working family, busy enough as it is) has been truly wonderful.

Looking beyond just my own little circle, I was also able to concentrate far more effort on preparing for the 2024 Tour Alberta for Cancer. Whether it was training, posting updates, getting my tour raffle organized, or now putting together prizes for my enormously generous winners, it was a real joy to be able to actually bear down and give the Tour even more attention⁵.

But what does this have to do with building?

Simply put: family and community are things that we build. And that building takes time and energy and focus, which are precious limited resources that we so often are forced to expend on work because the modern capitalist world does not and cannot value something so intangible.

But it is building. And this time off has given me the freedom to do that work without competition or distraction from the necessities of a day job.

Looking around

Reflecting on my own professional career, the work that I was most proud of rarely involved building things. If you were to ask me about my greatest professional accomplishments, it would be in the teams I’ve built, the coaching I’ve done, the relationships I’ve made, and the positive impact my work has had on the lives of others. After all, things are just things and quickly forgotten. But, as I was reminded recently, the impacts we have on people, both expected and unexpected, live on, often far beyond what we could ever imagine.

Unfortunately, now with the benefit of time and distance and renewed perspective on the tech industry, I worry that the incessant focus on capturing value has led is all astray.

In the beginning I was attracted to technology because of it’s potential for creation: the creation of communities, through IRC and Usenet and eventually blogs and early social platforms; the creation of art through games, music, animation, and so forth; and the creation of tools that could enable others in their own creative pursuits.

Today, while I still see that spirit in many places–blogs and the broader IndieWeb, the Fediverse, many corners of the open source world, the indie game community–the shifts in the tech industry, particularly in the last couple of years, have left me feeling increasingly cynical.

The most obvious example of the extractive focus of tech is the rise of generative AI. While I cannot deny the power of these new tools when put in the hands of creators–I know multiple engineers who swear by them as powerful new tools in their arsenal–one equally cannot deny that those sames tools are often being used to further the extractive goals of modern capitalism. Whether it’s by actively destroying the apprenticeship pipeline in creative industries by replacing junior staff with LLMs in the name of cost savings, flooding the internet with AI generated clickbait to extract more advertising dollars, or digesting, remixing, and then displacing the work of human artists who already struggle to make a living, the tech industry is actively cannibalising itself and so many others in the hopes of automating away human labour while hoarding even more wealth for itself.

But this trend is hardly a new one⁶. Whether it’s the rise of gig work that skirts around minimum wage laws by exploiting regulatory loopholes, the decades long push toward extractive surveillance capitalism, or the modern rise of tech billionaires looking to twist our sociopolitical systems to their advantage, the industry at large has become increasingly toxic.

Meanwhile, the precarity of modern life means we often feel we have little choice but to participate in these systems. Whether it’s a coder using an LLM because they feel it’s the only way to keep up with their colleagues lest they be laid off, or a writer using an LLM because it’s the only way they can turn out enough content to make a living in an increasing commoditized world, or an Uber driver simply trying to make ends meet after their job was eliminated by automation, technology has been used to create a perverse kind of trap, becoming, paraphrasing Homer Simpson, both the cause of and solution to so many of life’s problems.

And as a builder once attracted to technology for it’s incredible potential, and as a professional with a renewed perspective after a year away from the industry, it’s truly disappointing to see something once so inspiring and empowering become so cynically extractive.

Looking ahead

So what do I do?

Well, as I look at my future, I am certain of one thing: with at least fifteen to twenty years still remaining in my career, whatever I do, it must be in service of building and creating and raising up those around me rather than simply making ends meet and enriching myself.

Fortunately, because of that hard work and good planning and monumental luck, I have the luxury of some time (not an infinite amount, but, I think, enough) to find that right opportunity rather than having to compromise my values out of financial necessity.

At minimum that means a change of industry. Whether it’s something like healthcare, or elder care, or education, I truly believe technology still has enormous potential to have a positive impact, so long as those wielding that technology focus on building and supporting people and communities and not simply lining their own pockets.

And if I can’t find a company with a mission that inspires me, that allows me to build something that I can be proud of, well, then maybe I’ll just have to do the hard thing and create something new; something that demonstrates that technology doesn’t have to be about tearing things down and disrupting, but can be focused on lifting us up and, yes, building.