I see myself in Jason Kottke's writing about burnout. I used to occasionally marvel that I got paid (and paid pretty well!) to solve problems in software. The past few years I've felt mired in Jira/Agile hell, working on machines slowed by corporate-mandated anti-virus and whatever other spyware, building software that is often thrown away due to unrealistic requirements or just plain bad requirements gathering.

I've also become a father, which is obviously a time-consuming and stressful endeavor.

Oh, and there's this pandemic going on, so I didn't get to see much of my Mom while she was dying, but I did feel like I saw some extra ugliness in society in general.

I'm not sure which of these (or other) factors have contributed more or less to my feeling this way. I've been starting to think about taking some time off, although I'm not sure how much I'll be able to swing. But if there were a clone of me out there, and I could press a button to approve a 6 month sabbatical for him, I'd definitely do it.

It's easy to look at the superficial and think, "man this Kottke guy had an easy gig, he doesn't deserve a 6 month break", but if he's feeling similarly to me, I don't begrudge him. Like the Chinese expression says: Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.