Alright, so yesterday, I got totally sucked down this rabbit hole about the future of the US. I'm talking big predictions for the next few decades. Seriously ambitious stuff.
It started simple. Saw a random title pop up online about a "Map of Future United States." Like, what does that even mean? Got curious, figured 'why not dig into it myself?' Grabbed a giant cup of coffee, settled into my comfy chair – the one with the slight dent in the cushion? Yeah, that one – and just started hunting around online. Nothing fancy, just clicking links, reading articles, forums, whatever I could find.
Let me tell you, it got messy real fast. Found these wild ideas floating around. Some folks seriously talking about Texas going solo again. California splitting into multiple states? Coastline shifting with the oceans rising? Whole different countries popping up inside what's now the US. And new capitals – Denver was popping up, places in the Great Lakes region too. Found tons of different maps people had drawn up. Everyone seemed to have their own pet theory. A lot felt like they came straight out of fiction, honestly. Kept digging, trying to see who backed this stuff up. Mostly internet chatter and some niche blogs. Finding anything solid felt impossible. Felt like grasping at smoke.
The deeper I went, the crazier it felt. This one detailed map had Florida partially underwater. Another showed big chunks of the Southwest basically desertified. Economic zones getting redrawn. Honestly, after a few hours of this, my head was spinning. Felt like a jigsaw puzzle where none of the pieces fit together. What started as curiosity turned into pure frustration. How could any of this be reliable? It was all just speculation piled on top of wild guesses. Started muttering to myself about it – my cat looked pretty concerned, actually.
Here’s the thing that struck me: it reminded me way too much of my last gig. Seriously. This whole quest felt like that tech mess all over again.
- Trying to build something big with a bunch of disconnected, weak ideas?
- Different groups going off and doing their own thing?
- No real plan tying it all together?
Just like that company project back in… oh, 2023? We had this grand plan for a new platform. Management kept adding features, saying "do whatever works!" We ended up with Java here, Go there, Python stuck in the middle like an afterthought. PHP remnants lurking in the shadows. Sound familiar?
Nobody was talking to each other. Marketing promised the moon. Engineering couldn't figure out how to build the ladder. Support was drowning. And users? They just got confused. Trying to roll anything back was impossible. Teams just pointed fingers. "Not my code!" "Your feature broke my API!" Absolute chaos. Remembering it made me groan out loud.
Why’d I get stuck on that map nonsense? Honestly, it feels connected. Maybe trying to make sense of a chaotic future was my weird way of processing that chaotic past job. Anyway, that last job… It ended badly. Remember COVID lockdowns? Got stuck overseas visiting family when the big border shutdown happened. Managed to get back eventually, but the company? Total radio silence. Paychecks stopped. Just vanished off the system. Tried calling folks – numbers disconnected, or people pretending not to know me. Poof. Like I never existed.
Scary times. Had a newborn then. Bills piling up, savings draining fast. Desperation makes you do things. Ended up jumping ship entirely, landed a gig writing content for this engineering firm out in the Midwest. Total change. Steady hours, actually know what I'm doing each day. No more chasing smoke rings or trying to build castles on sand. Funny how life twists. They call me back now offering big bucks? Yeah, hard pass. Blocked every last number. Learned my lesson. Some future maps are best left unexplored.
