On the weekend, a woman asked me what I do for a living. I gave my wishy-washy sort of "I am a software developer, but just working on strange projects, these days" answer. This made me feel strange.

Part of the problem is that I don't know why she was asking. We weren't actually talking about... well... anything. Maybe she just wanted to ask a basic question which anyone can answer but I always worry that people ask those things since they are trying to determine where you stand in a sort of social hierarchy. Probably just paranoid and not what is happening (after all, whenever I ask, it is just out of curiousity).

Still, it sticks in my mind because my life is not prestigious. Of course, this also doesn't bother me much since I realized, nearly 14 years ago, that this prestige is nonsense due to where I was working then and the disagreement between how others saw that and how I saw it.

Sure, on some level, I suppose I must admit that I wish I did feel a sense of... perhaps not prestige, but at least a form of my pride in how I spend my time.

This does get down to a different question, though: Do I still find a sense of purpose from my work and, if not, what is my purpose?

This one is trickier since I don't really find that I have any purpose, at all, these days. I just work on my various projects because... well... they give me some sense of intellectual stimulation (although not as much as a true external challenge could deliver). Of course, the biggest reason is that I want to have interesting conversations, which means I need to do interesting things, in the desperate attempt to flag down someone who might have interesting things to say (in relation to my field, specifically).

My long-standing existential angst aside, I probably should remember to answer such questions in a more concise way, without any internal commentary or judgment: "I am a software developer".

Oh well, at least it was nice to get out. I could definitely use the exercise and the change of scenery.

...Nights