I did the best I could

I did the best I could. Since my early years, I have sought after the hardest challenges I could find, let it be finishing a videogame on the highest difficulty, acing knowledge olympiads, or writing papers for top-tier venues in my field. I thought that, in thriving through these challenges, I would find peace in an accepting, supportive community of likely-minded people. I could not be more wrong. In fact, I ended up surrounded by highly competitive assholes which proudly brag about their meaningless achievements. “I was accepted to a Summer School”, they first say, and immediately add, “which has only a 6% acceptance rate”. “My cumulative grade in college was 97%; what was yours?”, I have also been asked. Later in life, I have been inquired about my h- and i10- and h5- and etc.- indices, many of which I have not heard about, or how much money I got from funding agencies. If one fails at achieving an acceptable level at any of these metrics, their career withers and their professional opportunities vanish.

On top of that, with the sole exception of the occasional project update meetings with my supervisor, I have not had any meaningful social interactions in the past six months. And, as Chris McCandless wrote prior to passing away in an abandoned van in Alaska, “Happiness is only real when shared”.

To make matters worse, I am also haunted by a perennial job insecurity due to the fixed-term nature of the contracts I hold. Ironically, I have landed in an extremely unsupportive community while working under a substantial amount of pressure. Alas, I am accutely aware that I am better off than most humans; I have access to shelther and food for as long as I need, and I write these notes on a modern MacBook while listening to Spotify Premium. As Fezzik wisely said in William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, “The pit is bottomless”.

The crucial question, which remains unanswered, is how do we cope with our miserable lives?