Senior Management: We are severely disappointed in the timeliness of the two apps you built this year. You had budgeted 3 months for one and it took 4 months and the other was budgeted to take 4 months and took 5 months. We understand that we doubled the requirements halfway through and but that doesn’t take away from our need for you to deliver on time. We provided you with two extra devs on the project! We know they were novices and you had to train them from the ground up during the project, that doesn’t matter. The extra resources should have helped you but your lack of leadership ability is what caused them to hold you back. We know our other team with a budget of 6 months took 2 years on their project and was still unsuccessful but that is a different scenario! That was a pre-built 3rd party ERP plugin, way more complicated and nuanced than simply building and deploying something from scratch. Yes we’re aware your projects were the only successful tech projects at the company this year, that’s just luck and coincidence. The next app we need you to build in 6 months, no questions asked. It needs to consolidate and tie together our 3 different ERPs. Everything that we need out of these products that they don’t do out of the box we need you to wire up. We will decide the exact requirements in a month or so, for now just get started. Yes your apps changed the way we do business and allowed us to complete projects smoother than ever before while saving millions of dollars in wasteful and archaic processes that is OLD NEWS. Stop bringing it up. The successes of yesterday are the status quo of today. Don’t expect any new resources either, you clearly can’t handle them. You will now be giving status updates to 3 different managers as a corrective action to your missed deadlines in order to ensure the timeliness of future deliverables.

Dev: …

Imagine if a structural engineer whose bridge has collapsed and killed several people calls it a feature.

Imagine if that structural engineer made a mistake in the tensile strength of this or that type of bolt and shoved it under the rug as "won't fix".

Imagine that it's you who's relying on that bridge to commute every day. Would you use it, knowing that its QA might not have been very rigorous and could fail at any point in time?

Seriously, you developers have all kinds of fancy stuff like Continuous Integration, Agile development, pipelines, unit testing and some more buzzwords. So why is it that the bridges don't collapse, yet new critical security vulnerabilities caused by bad design, unfixed bugs etc appear every day?

Your actions have consequences. Maybe not for yourself but likely it will have on someone else who's relying on your software. And good QA instead of that whole stupid "move fast and break things" is imperative.

Software developers call themselves the same engineers as the structural engineer and the electrical engineer whose mistakes can kill people. I can't help but be utterly disappointed with the status quo in software development. Don't you carry the title of the engineer with pride? The pride that comes from the responsibility that your application creates?

I wish I'd taken the blue pill. I didn't want to know that software "engineering" was this bad, this insanity-inducing.

But more than anything, it surprises me that the world that relies so much on software hasn't collapsed in some incredible way yet, despite the quality of what's driving it.

A room full of mostly old male stressed out engineers sat in chairs, and the presenter said:

"So who watched Judging Amy last night?"

The presenter went on to express her surprise that nobody in the room had seen last night's episode of Judging Amy.... and wasn't going to drop the topic.

The meeting, if it ever had any, now had no chance of going anywhere good.

By the end of the meeting someone would walk out and "retire" shortly there after, and it certainly wasn't going to be the presenter....

Backstory:

The company built on the IBM model of sell pricey custom hardware (granted it worked really well) and sell expensive support contracts wasn't doing as well as it had hoped. Granted it was still doing better than most of its neighboring companies, but it was clear that with the .com bust the days of catered lunches every day were over.

The company had grown fat and everyone knew that while the company had a good enough product(s) to survive, there weren't enough lifeboats for everyone to survive.

In the midst of this an HR department that took up nearly 20% of the office space at HQ felt it needed to justify its existence / expenses.

They decided to do this in the same way they always had, by taking funding from other departments, this time not by simply demanding more direct budgets for themselves.... they decided to impose mandatory 'training' on other departments ... that they would then bill for this training.

When HR got wind that there were some stressed out engineers the solution was, as it always is for HR.... to do more HR stuff:

They decided to take these time starved engineers away from their jobs, and put them in a room with HR for 4 days. Meanwhile the engineer's tasks, deadlines and etc remained the same.

Support got roped into it too, and that's how I ended up there.

It would be difficult to describe the chasm between HR and everyone else at that company. This was an HR department that when they didn't have enough cubes (because of constant remodeling in the HR area under the guise of privacy) sat their extra HR employees next to engineering and were 'upset' that the engineers 'weren't very friendly and all they did was work'.

At one point a meeting to discuss this point of contention was called off for some made up reason or another by someone with a clue.

So there we all sat, our deadlines kept ticking away and this HR team (3 people) stood at the front of the room and were perplexed that none of these mostly older males in this room had seen last night's episode of Judging Amy.

From there the presentation was chaos, because almost the entire thing was based on your knowledge of what happened to poor stressed out Amy ... or something like that.

We were peppered with HR tales of being stressed out and taking a long lunch and feeling better, and this magical thing where the poor HR person went and had a good cry with her boss and her boss magically took more off her plate (a brutal story where the poor HR person was almost moved to tears again).

The lack of apparent sympathy (really nobody said much at all) and lack of seeming understanding from the crowd of engineers that all they should do is take a long lunch, or tell their boss to solve their problems ... seemed to bother the HR folks. They were on edge.

So then they finally asked "What are your stressers?" And they picked the worst possible person they could to ask, Ted.

Ted was old, he prickly, he was the only one who understood the worst ass hell of assembly that had been left behind.

Ted made a mistake, he was honest with folks who couldn't possibly understand what he was saying. "This mandatory class is stressing me out. I have work to do and less time because of this class."

The exchange that followed was kinda horrible and I recall sitting behind Ted trying to be as small as possible as to not be called on. Exactly what everyone said almost doesn't matter.

A pedantic debate between Ted and the HR staff about "mandatory" and "required" followed. I will just sum it up that they were both in the wrong for how they behaved for a good 20 minutes...

Ted walked out, and would later 'retire' that week.

Ted had a history and was no saint. I suspect an email campaign by various folks who recounted the events that day spared ted the 'fired' status and he walked with what eventually would become the severance package status quo.

HR never again held another 'training', most of them would all finally face the axe a few months later after the CEO finally decided that 'customer facing, and product producing' headcount had been reduced enough ... and it was other internal staff's time for that.

The result of the meeting was one less engineer, and everyone else had 4 days less of work done...

I can't help but be disappointed in the direction that technology has directed us into, especially social media.

While I love my girlfriend, she more often than not spends her time scrolling away at the dumbest shit on Instagram, Facebook, .. reels. Reels everywhere. And she's not dumb, mind you. She's an engineer just as much as you (presumably) and I are. Just in a different field.

When looking into it online and stumbling upon more than one study, I learned about the term it had been coined.. technoference. That's the constant interruption of social media into our day-to-day lives, and the dopamine kick it gives -- more so than IRL peers do. Why that is, being the digital equivalent to McDonald's, that's beyond me. But somehow it seems to be better, all while the content isn't even useful. It doesn't allow you to learn anything, to gain insights, or to explore things that could serve you in the real world. Cat videos and random shit that's somehow.. funny? Having pretty much completely disconnected from social media years ago, I seriously fail to see how.

Maybe us nerds in the 90's and early 2000's telling everyone else how we'd change the world and prove everyone who called us freaks wrong, disenchanted as we were (and probably still are), were the catalyst for this social disaster. We had the cognitive skills to do it, but not the social equivalent. I feel guilty... Even though I've always been part of a big tech resistance in some capacity, I still feel guilty. Because I'm one of those people with the skills of those who created this trash fire of a societal status quo. Everyone glued to their screens, 95% of the time not for work. Not even to aid one's ability to function in the real world. Just to combat boredom. All day, for many hours on end.

Where is it going to end? When will people realize the dystopia we got ourselves into? Will anyone but a few fight it? Would those who don't fight it even care?

"Thank you for choosing Microsoft!"

No Microsoft, I really didn't choose you. This crappy hardware made you the inevitable, not a choice.

And like hell do I want to run your crappy shit OS. I tried to reset my PC, got all my programs removed (because that's obviously where the errors are, not the OS, right? Certified motherfuckers). Yet the shit still didn't get resolved even after a reset. Installing Windows freshly again, because "I chose this".

Give me a break, Microshaft. If it wasn't for your crappy OS, I would've gone to sleep hours ago. Yet me disabling your shitty telemetry brought this shit upon me, by disabling me to get Insider updates just because I added a registry key and disabled a service. Just how much are you going to force data collection out of your "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" users, Microsoft?

Honestly, at this point I think that Microsoft under Ballmer might've been better. Because while Linux was apparently cancer back then, at least this shitty data collection for "a free OS" wasn't yet a thing back then.

My mother still runs Vista, an OS that has since a few months ago reached EOL. Last time she visited me I recommended her to switch to Windows 7, because it looks the same but is better in terms of performance and is still supported. She refused, because it might damage her configurations. Granted, that's probably full of malware but at this point I'm glad she did.

Even Windows 7 has telemetry forcibly enabled at this point. Vista may be unsupported, but at least it didn't fall victim to the current status quo - data mining on every Microshaft OS that's still supported.

Microsoft may have been shady ever since they pursued manufacturers into defaulting to their OS, and GPU manufacturers will probably also have been lobbied into supporting Windows exclusively. But this data mining shit? Not even the Ballmer era was as horrible as this. My mother may not realize it, but she unknowingly avoided it.

People having sleep deprivation.

If your health is at stake, you may want to aim for maximum healing potential.
Humen always should prefer more natural substances and techniques.
As chemicals mostly alter the status quo but tackle the ultimate reason why.

Military has developed glasses that simulate the sunrise to wake you up / keep you awake.
That technique is like 20 years old. And who is gonna get those glasses for me?
Nowadays, studies published find humen feel more at ease by rising and sleeping with the sun and moon.
Having two weeks of camping once in a while is recommended. At least once a year.

Alternately you can try to regulate your days rhythm.
Start your day with a cup of hot speedwell tea.
Like every freaking day.
Its augmenting your activity thus easing your sleep at night.

Give every technique at least two weeks time to take effect.
And always remember :
Sleep is a thing that can be influenced but never will be controlled.

Good night ;P

Got reminded of this job search bullshit they say after interviews, when they say you're not "fit for the culture" but they want you to be "challenging the status-quo".
Like, take a fucking pick. Either you want someone who follows and fits in, or you want someone who innovates and stands out. 😒

This rant has been one that I've been wanting to rant about for a while now. Me being drunk as fuck right now (mind, stay awake!) doesn't really help, but meh.
At least Wanblows was able to install its "features" properly... Except it wasn't, being the featureful ShitOS it is.

I want to rant about privacy. Not about "nothing to hide, nothing to fear". That's been ranted about plenty by the MIcroshaft-loving folks as well as the privacy-aware opposition. Rather, I'd like to rant about the privacy-concious.

I am a privacy-concious-person, with his current status quo being that he doesn't yet know a privacy-concious solution to every data-intrusive "common solution" out there. So I tend to value privacy next to De Lijn while sharing location data to Google with Google Maps. Point is, I do not know privacy-concious solutions to everything out there yet. So I use the convenient over the privacy-aware.
(after review while drunk I was unable to make sense of this)

In the privacy-aware circles I tend to see that it seems to be black and white. You share your data with Google, yet you oppose data collection by local institutes? WRONG!!! YOU MUST BE A TINFOIL HAT!!!
No, seriously I don't want to share my data with Google. Just that they're the only realtime navigation platform with decent UI out there that I know of right now.

Privacy isn't all black and white here. I block any intrusion that I'm able to, anything else I abide to, while awaiting a good alternative that does respect my privacy which I would gladly use instead. That does not imply that "I have nothing to hide". I do, and I have a lot to hide.

So that makes up the black and white nature of privacy, which is a fallacy. Another one is the whole idea of "I have nothing to hide" to begin with.

If you have nothing to hide, would you be comfortable with sharing your location data (IP address, habits, common trends, etc) with me? To share your information with me, to have your contacts share your info with me, without your consent? Of course you wouldn't. But that's what's happening right now.

Stackoverflow status quo:

A question was upvoted 122 times --> Closed as too broad.

1 on 1 meetings with manager throughout the year

Manager: You're doing really well! Keep it up!
Me: Cool, thanks!

1 on 1 meetings with my manager a month or two ago

Manager: You're still killing it! I'd really like to see you challenge the status quo since you're the newest on the team. I think we could benefit from fresh perspective.
Me: Ok, cool, I'm starting to feel pretty comfortable so I'll do that.
Me: *starts challenging process, team structure, and company norms in meetings*
Manager: *confused pikachu face*

1 on 1 meetings now, right before performance management

Manager: I really need you to start picking up more important work. You're not performing well relative to others at your level, and I won't be able to represent you well during performance management.
Me: 😐

JS interview:
– we expect you to know the concepts of immutability, persistence, software architecture and systems theory, methods of analyzing complexity beyond the big-O notation, safe parallel code execution with web workers, WASM, modern web standards including working drafts, progressive enhancement and graceful degradation, WCAG recommendations and web accessibility in general, UX strategies and modern graphic design trends. Nice 20k github stars you got there. By the way, what's your opinion on modern optimistic UX?
– I know this all but I somewhat disagree with some status-quo UX strategies
– unfortunately it's a no

PHP interview:
– Do you know how to wipe your ass?
– *excited hysterical jumping with head nodding*
– You're hired

The president and manager where I work always say: "We have to defy the status quo". But when I say "we don't need to do that in this way, we can do it this way which is more efficient". Then they say, "We can't because we have to do everything in the same way". You are just making yourself look stupid.

Why is it that you guys are not seeing the big picture and reading between the fucken lines... why is it that people always have to run to legislation to fix their problems .... THIS IS WHY.. the other generation accomplished so much more because when there’s a problem they came up with a solution many times better than the status quo.
Those people are few and far between now.. those folks are the innovators. You know whom I’m referring to... those people didn’t whine to create laws to fix or protect their industry from competitors.
We need to stop looking toward our government to fix our issues... especially regarding this issue.. WHY because the people in government ARE NOT TECH PEOPLE!!! THEY DONT EVEN KNOW HOW COMPUTERS WORK! for Pete’s sake folks we had a lady in there who thought the term whip the server ment to literally clean it with a rag... come-on guys, do what they did years ago you don’t like something FIX IT.. by creating something new!
There’s a reason our grandparents generation made it to the fucken moon with less technology than a calculator, BECAUSE THEY PROBLEM SOLVED!
What have we achieved in the last 5 years that is really “big”... fucken apps

Unite together build the next internet learning from the issues we’ve seen with the internet over the last 30 years.. No it won’t be quick no it won’t be easy but nothing revolutionary is easy.
It took 6 years to land a man on the moon, I think we can rebuild the network infrastructure in that time OR FAR LESS if we unite together! Without the government interference we can eliminate the ISPs from the equation and screw them over for screwing us for so long

My group is has the solution, the vision and need, to get this done be we can’t do it alone I will make the official public statement within 24 hours of the vote results...
explaining everything, the plan, the work, EVERYTHING.
We need more people.
For reference the plan can be summarized like this.. nonprofit CoOp Tier 1 ISP.. members being the end users from both sides of the equation ...

TILL THEN
Contact me here,
Or SnapChat: theqsolution
Until I release all the contact info.

Was just reading some of the OpenVPN scripts to renew a certificate where I forgot to source the vars file first (apparently OpenVPN stores those in a separate file that you always have to source first, and I tend to forget it sometimes).

Reading the revoke-full script that OpenVPN provides, it's just bash so I can read it no problem. But traversing through it and trying to understand it... Horrible! There's a test file in $RT named keys/revoke-test.pem. It's not used anywhere in OpenVPN for anything useful as far as I'm aware. The script however - the script that's running on a production server! - attempts to remove this file. It doesn't exist. Test files do (or at least should) not exist in production. They're not supposed to be there.

It exports empty variables. Some of them are set by the sourced vars file, some aren't. Not entirely sure why it's exporting variables as empty when they're uninitialized, or why it doesn't just unset the ones that are initialized.

And finally it goes ahead and revokes the key file that I'm actually concerned about through regular OpenSSL and verifies it.

Not to mention that the lack of the sourced vars file, which admittedly I should think about in the current status quo, if it *always* needs to be sourced anyway... Why doesn't the script do that itself then? One less thing to go wrong. But hey, proper design?

Gore. I don't have any other words for it.

And before anyone tells me that I should go and fix it if I'm so worried about it. Remember, I am not a developer. That's the job of the developers that made this in the first place.

Joined a big corporate for the first time in my life a few months ago, after years and years in small companies and startups.

Went from designing new creative solutions and finding challenging problems to working on small stupid tasks and obeying a fucking idiotic company culture, that is nothing but words that are not applied in reality. Creativity and enthusiasm are discouraged for the sake of maintaining the status quo.

Probably the worst decision in my life. I don't think I can do this for long.

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. 
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
 While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Apple Commercial

So, it looks like I'll be hitting age 30 when I finish college, and my heart is torn in two places. On the one hand, a part of me wants to say fuck it and look for a job outside the US, maybe take up a second language. I have the spare time to work at it a couple of hours per day while in school and working on my capstone projects.

But, there's another part of me that says just stay in the homeland and just find a job somewhere in America. This is a huge country with a lot of options for backend/frontend/fullstack development. But I've been doing the same thing and seeing the same sights forever and I'd like something new. But I'm still relatively young and ignorant of countries outside the US. I could end up in more hot water then I bargained for leaving.

I don't know, and that's in a way okay. All I know is I want something different from my status quo. Something that justifies all the education I had to go through.

I miss psychological safety. I'll define it as the willingness to be vulnerable to criticism and the belief that contrary opinions are embraced and judged on their merit.

When I first entered the startup scene my manager had exceptional candor. He had no qualms talking about how kids and personal projects caused his investment in his work to wax and wane.

He always made time to talk to me when I was frustrated and made me feel like he truly listened to what I had to say, even if he didn't act on it.

At the time, I attributed the safety to the company culture created by the CTO. The startup failed and eventually, I found my way to that CTO's next startup.

Completely different experience. I find myself in despair as I hear "I'm more senior and therefore am right and don't have time or interest in your ideas" blatantly stated.

When I disagree with people, I try to ask clarifying questions to identify where the divergence occurs. Sometimes I'm surprised and learn something new, sometimes my questions prompt reconsideration.

With the CTO (now CEO), we go in circles where he squirms, deflects, and outright refuses to respond to my questions. He cancels 75% of 1:1's and when we do talk he suggests that if I disagree I "should introspect which of my beliefs is holding me back from embracing his superior way of doing things"

Multi-hour slack wars suck the life out of anyone trying to ask questions. It's so exhausting to ask questions it's often cheaper and faster to wallow in despair for an hour and hack something together than descend into people shouting preferences at each other and shaming me for not already knowing the answer.

Perks, pay, and tech-stack are all cool. It feels selfish to be unhappy because I can't innovate or challenge the status quo. Having tasted that safety though, I'm left with an unquenched thirst that grows stronger with every conflict.

Does anyone else find it strange that the stupidest people in the company are making all the decisions.

In order to be able to engineer software you have to understand everything that the product owner knows, the business analyst knows, the product manager knows + how to actually make the system both work in a reasonable time frame and be maintainable long-term.

But we're not the one making the decisions. The irony of it is something that I can't get beyond.

And when I do go out on a limb to point out a logical inconsistency to UX or product... They don't thank me for it they hate me for it and then 3 days later figure out that they should be doing it and quietly follow my suggestions.

Seriously is the goal here to create good software or to avoid stepping on everyone else's toes in the company who is overwhelmed by the complexity of the project.

I think companies based on a hierarchy of non-technical people controlling technical people, in the creation of software products are a dying breed.

When it comes to creating software products everyone in the hierarchy should be technically minded.

I've seriously been trying to come up with an alternative perspective here.

The executives of the company are completely out of touch and the only thing which looks like progress to them in a sprint review is something visual on the front end.

The technical architect, the product owner and the product manager all seem to be engaged in keeping the executives happy and managing their expectations. By means of obscuring the truth.

Imagine how much more cost-effective building a software product would be if the executives were engineers themselves.

I'm keen to do an experiment and build a company comprised of engineers only.

Obviously they need to have insight into the other roles. But none of these other roles are as complex as implementation itself.

So why exactly are we the slaves of these well-meaning under thinkers?

Okay, THAT was trippy.

Soo.. I slowly srart feeling uncomfortable. It's that feeling when you want to move your body to make it go away. Stretch an arm, move a leg or smth... Alright, no biggie - let's move something. But then my focus is overwhelmed by darkness. Hmm... I must be asleep. There's some soothing humming noise in the background. And that feeling's still there. Aaaahh, the numbness is now going away - I must've moved smth! Good job! Drowning back into sleep now. It's ssooo ssweet...
*outage*

*notions of awareness*
huh? What's that? Oh, right, I need to move again. That humming sound is so relaxing.. I'll move smth to change that status quo. There, much better now. Let's keep the eyes closed and drift back to sleep. It's so dark though...
*outage*

*notions of awareness*
ahh, that feeling again. Come on, I've moved like 4 times already. Well alright, alright, it's better to move that open my eyes or roll over.
Wait...
I can't roll over.
I can't even move my hands. Fuck, must be that sleep paralysis kicking in again. No biggie, it'll wear off if I stay aware long enoug........
*outage*

*...?...*
...nough. What? Did I nod off? That's weird. Meeh, nvm. Why is it so dark though... Okay, let's try to open the eyes. *attempts going on for ~a minute*. No luck. That humming sound, so soothing...
I feel some clothing on my - must be the blanket. So warm.. Nice.I'm feeling - prolly the paralysis is wearing off! Good. A few more minutes and I'll be free to roll over

let's try the eyes once again. Hhhrhrhhh! Nope, not working. Wait, what's that? I turned my body! But somehow...Weirdly. Too easy. There, I did it again! Why is it so easy and I am still feeling paralysed...? Wtf is going on...?

That humming. What IS it..?

Wait! My eyes opened! It's pitch dark in here. Why...? Usually there's at least *some* light in the room. Am I still asleep? Naah, that's not it.. I'm turning my body again. Why did I do that? Wtf is happening?

That humming sound is getting louder and louder, taking all of my attention now.
What is it I'm feeling with my feet? It's hard. And cold.

Wait... AM I STANDING??? What the fuck?!?

Why am i standing??? And that sound - that's... That's... A vent fan in my bathroom!!! Am I standing asleep in my bathroom...? In the middle of the night...? Facing the mirror...? With the lights off....?

WHAT THE FUCK DID JUST HAPPEN?!?!?
HOW THE FUCK DID I GET THERE?!?!?
How long have I been here...?

I HAVE QUESTIONS!!

Fuck it, I'm tired. Time to go to bed. It'll be one mindfuck of a storry tomorrow though...

da fuq.

My manager wants me to write specific test cases for status quo behavior (without turning on new features) on mobile web.

and TEST IT ON DEVICE NOT SIMULATORS

Does he know it's the 2020s?

and does he know all our changes were already out since we deployed it the first time? aka customers already tested it for us?

I'm not gonna tell him and open another can of worms lol

If you ever need a good example for bad API design, just use IndexedDB. While it might still be far above absolute zero, it should definitely be low enough for any practical purpose.

And as a bonus, it wouldn't actually have been needed if the SQLite status quo would just have been adopted as the standard back then. We could have a complete RDBMS with almost full SQL support in the browser...

Dealing with clients is probably the biggest personal challenge. I'm not much of a people person, and I find it hard to converse with friends and people I've known for years, let alone clients who are looking for answers for why things aren't working, and wanting you to explain exactly (but in simple terms) why a thing that seems simple is so complicated.

Another challenge, which is somewhat related is expressing myself. This again, stems from not being super great or comfortable in conversations, but as a dev, even among other devs, your opinion on things gets asked a lot. For someone who was used to sticking with the status quo and mostly agreeing with things, stuff like peer code reviews, or giving pointers on how to implement something is a big challenge (but I'm improving)

What do you hate about software and developer tutorials and how would you change them? What would totally disrupt the status quo with tutorials and make them easier to finish/useful/memorable/fun?

aff. I just said my managers management skills seem to be improving on the company survey.

Then he asks me "why isn't the status quo done in the new way"

o.o

me: "that's what status quo means"

#Breakup #GettingOverEx
So my ex broke up with me/ we decided to "go on a break" three months back. It didn't help that my ex is part of my close friend group and I'm obliged to run into them every other weekend.
None of my close friend group knows what transpired/that we dated.
They started dating someone new as soon as we went on a break.

As a part of new year, I decided to mentally move on. Now my ex is trying to reinsert themselves in my life (unsure in what capacity- as a friend/reltnshp).Today, I woke up dreaming about my ex and their new flame and feeling pretty disturbed. I don't know their status quo either as I haven't talked to my ex about it. (Just know it as friend group mentions them here and there)

I had initiated communication with my ex as I needed an advise (on phone) and they kind of self invited themselves to my place on weekend. How to cope with all this mess. I am unable to focus on my work because of this and my productivity is shot.

I just want to move on and date someone who makes me happy/is worth my energy.

How do y'all process breakups/get over ex?

It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.

I really hope all the evil in the world is done for the greater good, I'm praying that humans aren't inherently evil and that there are bigger pictures we can't see.

Nonetheless, I wish you great health. Survival is the primary goal. Stay alive, because, what a time to be alive.

Most importantly, enjoy every second of it. Fuck the status quo, do what you think is right. Do what your gut tells you. Be virtuous, even if you don't have it. Have integrity, be honest and just.

Earth and Sun are beautiful, yet we spend our lives inside fucking walls, and when it's time to go home, it's fucking dark.

arrrrrrgh status quo for a reason! how am i supposed to test anything if youre continually going to fuck with DNS??!!