Life Update: I'm Doing Well | The Renegade Coder

Lately, I've been on a crusade against generative AI, and I think it might have some people worried about me. As a result, I wanted to take a moment to just talk about how I'm doing, which is really well actually. Rationale Currently, it's the middle of June. By the time you're seeing this, it might be the end of July. At the moment, I have the longest backlog of articles I've written in a few years, and it feels nice. I now have my work scheduled out a few weeks in advance. The problem is that a lot of the articles you will read are pretty depressing. Here's literally the lineup of article titles: Generative AI Has a Short Shelf Life 4 Values We Have to Stop Pushing in Engineering Education The Acceleration of the Enshittification of Everything ChatGPT Is Stack Overflow for the Lazy and Helpless The Worst Use Cases for Generative AI That Are Already Mainstream And even before that, I had articles titles like the following: SB1 Is the Death of Higher Education in Ohio No, Generative AI Is Not Just Another Innovation Generative AI Makes It Feel Bad to Be an Educator Obviously, I'm on a bit of a darker kick than usual. So dark, in fact, that I have folks checking in on me. As a result, I wanted to put together a little piece to actually let folks know that I'm doing great! Actually, I've very happy with where I'm at in my life. To offset the past few months of work, I figured I'd share some of the highlights in my life. The Last Six Months You may recall that I graduated from my PhD program late last year. Since then, I've fully transitioned into being a faculty member. Now, after I teach my three classes, I'm able to come home and spend time with my family. It's awesome! I love it. In addition, I managed to secure a role as a "Resident Director" (RD) for a study abroad program to Japan. That program was in its second year, and we rapidly picked up where the previous two RDs left off. I'm hoping to continue to run that program indefinitely. I had a lot of fun, and I'm enjoying the prospect of building out international collaboration between universities. Also, my sister and her husband moved to town with their three kids. This has been a wonderful blessing as we're able to watch our kids grow up together. It's also been an awesome deal as it convinces family and friends to come to us now. No more (or rather fewer) long road trips with screaming toddlers. On top of that, since finishing my degree, I've gotten more involved in the community. Specifically, I joined our local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Since joining, I've been able to take part in a lot of meaningful movements. For instance, I've attended a handful of protests for the first time in my life, and I'm helping one of our working groups propose sanctuary city legislation in various local neighborhoods. Finally, I weened myself off of my antidepressants at the beginning of the year, which I had been taking for a few years. While I needed them for a time to get through grad school and losing my mom, I'm so happy to be off them. I was able to use that time to develop better coping habits, like focusing on diet and exercise, spending time with friends and family, and simply going outside and getting involved—though, certainly getting of off social media helped. With that said, I definitely experience emotions more intensely now (hence the trend of angry articles), but I like being able to feel the pure joy that comes with watching your kiddo grow. The Next Six Months While I don't really plan that far into the future, I do have a lot of fun things to look forward to. Just looking at my calendar, I'm going on a camping trip near the end of June. Then, we're going to see fireworks the following Friday and have some friends over the next day. Probably by the time this article goes out, I'll be home alone for the weekend (or maybe going back home for a bit). Looking ahead, I'll be heading home for a celebration of life at the end of July and will hopefully have my final paper submitted to a conference (which somehow got accepted without edits). From there, my August is sort of wide open. We have some plans for a few local festivals, but nothing too concrete. After that, another semester starts! Going into the fall, I'm actually taking a course. As it turns out, my self-taught Japanese is so bad that I felt the need to get educated. Thankfully, my university will cover the cost of continuing education, so it's not going to set me back at all (beyond my time and energy). That said, this Japanese course is individualized, so I just meet with someone to talk four days a week for fifteen minutes. I'm hoping by this time next year that my Japanese will at least be somewhat respectable. Otherwise, I have some plans this summer to overhaul a lot of my coursework. As much as I like to give students a lot of grace, I want to make my life a little less painful. We'll see how well that works out by December I suppose. Looking Into the Distance As I look ahead into the future, there are other things I'm excited about. For instance, my wife and I are hoping to have a second kid sometime in the next year. Likewise, we want to try to buy our first house. Until now, we've been perpetually renting and watching that rent perpetually climb. It's absurd to me that my first apartment was $600/month in 2016 while I now pay $1685/month in 2025, which I think is a nice segue into my next point: I would by lying if I didn't address the fact that the world is in a really bad place. For starters, I'm really concerned about whatever plan that guys like Elon Musk and Sam Altman have for society as they treat us like guinea pigs with each new "innovation." Their technofascist dreams masquerading as utopia are short-sighted and naive. I'm also really concerned about escalating tensions in the Middle East. At the time of writing, Israel and Iran are exchanging blows while Israel continues to genocide the Palestinians. All of which is conveniently backed by the United States and will inevitably lead to blowback. I'm even concerned about what's happening domestically. Housing and food prices are out of control. At the same time, our government seems hellbent on eliminating any and all social programs that exist from social security to Medicare and Medicaid. Meanwhile, that same government is on a fascistic rise as it defies court orders while ripping migrants off the streets and tossing them in extrajudicial labor camps in El Salvador. Needless to say, the news itself is depressing, and it's hard to even say that as I sit here comfortably from my keyboard. There is just an absurd amount of unnecessary suffering in the world, and it's easy to slip into that doomer mindset. However, I have no plan to be cynical or nihilistic. While my recent work might seem depressing, it's actually meant to be the opposite. I'm being critical. I want to fight. I want to encourage others to fight. We don't have to accept what's in front of us. In fact, I recently saw a wonderful video by Thinkpiece Tribe that talks about the connections between One Piece and politics. In an early part of that video, the author talks about Luffy and how he's constantly smiling in the face of an "empire in decay." The actual quote reads: Literally, the most dangerous thing you can do during an empire in decay is to smile without permission. It's to laugh out loud. It's to love loudly. It's to imagine more. Because revolution isn't just burning shit down. I need y'all to get it. It's gardening while it burns. It's building joy in the rubble. It's dancing on the cracked floor of a failing world and saying, "You're not going to take my ability to feel alive." That's sacred. That's resistance. Joy was never a distraction. In other words, for every day that you give into doomerism, you let the darkness win. Hell, even losing is better than giving up because at least you fought for something. Once again, thanks for sticking around to the end of the article. As I mentioned already, I wrote this piece, so folks won't feel the need to check up on me. At 31, I can confidently say this is the best I've felt about my life yet. I have a clear purpose, and I've finally settled into a routine. No longer do I wonder if I should have done something else with my life. I'm happy with where I am. If you're not, feel free to reach out! I'm always happy to talk things out with folks. And if I can't help, I probably know someone who can.