Some people are working here!

(still back blipping my trip to the vierdaagse in nijmegen, walking 160km with blipper pippiline. It started on sunday 13 if you are curious)

Second day of foot recovery by walking a few kilometers on a beach - Ihave always loved these north sea beaches. Not great for swimming with the wind and the cold (and I love swimming) but great for walking, and such a gorgeous light all year round.

While we were walking enjoying the wind and the salt, these guys passed us. I think it must have been an exercise of "tow the stupid people stuck in the little boat that cant come back through the waves".

This is a good job, it matters and is important, even though i guess you sometimes risk your life because people were stupid and though the warnings didnt apply to them...

It kind of drives it home to me how increasingly disabused I am about the kind of jobs I have had. Well paid and important sounding, yes, but all you do is give other people a way to waste time and get distracted, or spend money on stuff they already dont need... although at least failure is simply loss

As much as I enjoy the intellectual and commercial challenge of my job, I feel more alive when doing things like the 4 day walk, meeting people, making real things happen. And looking back what I am most proud of is the creating of teams that continue to stick together long after I created them, of people whom I know I encouraged to learn more, try more, be more and whose life I changed in small (or sometimes big) ways. Don't get me wrong, I am also proud of the products we built, the technology solutions we came up with, (and some of the stuff I have done *was* ahead of its time and very clever), the clients I have helped. But in the end the technology could have been done by many other people, and it is the impact on people, both employees and clients, that I feel proud of.

I'm like most people, I want to change the world and be involved in things that matter. Really matter.

What it means for my career is that I either need to find an income that pays the bills but gives me time to do my own on the side, or try to work for something like Unesco. Or get another big challenging position with money and exposure that will make the plan possible.

Maybe I'll get an idea that does both.