Subject: Thank You and Farewell!

Dear Colleagues,

Perhaps by now some of you have already heard that my journey with the cybersec program is coming to an end. Just ghosting completely without saying anything felt weird so I hope you'll allow me to share a few parting words.

Being accepted here was one of the proudest achievements of my life. I remember that moment so vividly. My life and career had been stuck in first gear ever since my last bout with severe burnout and depression. The previous year spent in culinary school was one of the happiest, but the only takeaway (pun intended) from it in terms of going forward was that I never want to work as a chef. Cooking helped me reconnect with people and perhaps even more importantly, with my own humanity. If you ever feel like your work is turning you into a CPU, go make a nice soup. And then share it with the people you love. Or do something else that any human being would appreciate (for me that means either cooking or music).

I hoped that coming here would allow me to find new meaning in my career and to apply the resentment I foster for this industry in a productive manner. I've spent most of my life working in IT. In fact, my first ever summer job was building 486's and those hot (literally) new Pentiums for customers at a PC store at the age of 15. Unfortunately, it didn't work. If anything, I felt my cynicism for the craft I once loved so dearly just grow stronger and stronger. Like I said in my letter to Adrian and Emily - working in a technical role feels like being on a ship that's headed towards an iceberg while I'm down in the bowels of the engine room worrying about the oil pressure.

Like for so many of my generation, tech started out as a hobby that grew into a career without us ever really noticing. My main interest were Macintosh computers and my journey with them began at a time when Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy. Every friend told me to stop wasting my time. Well, things turned out OK in the end. This just goes to show that you should always stick to your passion. However obscure or "non-trendy" it may seem at the time. If you love what you do, then everything else will just fall into place. Amiga fans may beg to differ, but it's true.

So that's what I'm doing. Looking for my next love. Oddly enough, I also may have found the human version of her less than two months ago! You make plans and then life goes "ummm... actually...". Career-wise, I would still like to apply my criticism of the tech industry in a productive manner. To somehow help make society rule technology and not vice versa. To slow down the constant disruption, to strengthen diversity, to bring more ethical thinking into what we do and to help explain to the general public the enormous costs of what all this "modern convenience" really entails. I also discovered that I really love writing. These two things go hand in hand really well so expect to see some scathing articles by yours truly in the coming years. I'm also applying for the "Technology Governance and Sustainability" program right here at TalTech so there's a good chance I'll be seeing you around campus!

I wish I could say that this year gave me a ton of fond memories, but looking back, it feels more like a long string of online meetings. Which I guess makes the few memorable moments all that more special. Thanks so much to all my wonderful teammates (you know who you are!) - I couldn't have completed the first semester as well as I did without you. Apologies to my peers from the second semester that I let down (I'm looking mostly at you, Gustav). I'm sorry. I wish I could have handled my departure better, but the truth is it took me a while to even understand what was going on. Sometimes it's really hard to let go of something that has defined your entire existence for so long and there's no other way to just disconnect completely in order to hear your own inner voice again. And thanks for all the stimulating discussions. I suspect that bus to Tartu actually had a hidden feature...

Take care of yourselves! This can be a lonely, sometimes brutal profession where you have to make really important, incredibly complicated decisions very quickly and a single typo or accidental linefeed can mean the difference between a successful system upgrade and utter annihilation. You may often find yourself as the only person in the room who knows what's going on or what their talking about or how to fix things. You may even find yourself to be the one who broke everything because you have great power and your bosses have no clue what you're actually doing. With great power comes great responsibility, but with great responsibility comes great stress. Don't let that stress break you like it broke me!

Always remember that change is the only constant and however bad or hopeless things may seem at any given moment, it will all change. This works both ways so make sure to cherish everything that brings you joy and never forget to let the people you care about know how you feel.

May The Source be with You, -filipp

filipp@fps.ee filipp@mac.com https://unflyingobject.com/