Act V - Scene 1

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts… William Shakespeare

I was recently made redundant due to an AI transformation project at WiseTech Global - yes, AI is coming for your knowledge-worker job.

Given my age, some health issues (which I will elaborate on later), and my desire to retain as many people in my team as possible, I chose to accept an offer and take an earlier retirement than I otherwise would have.

I have been pondering what happens next, which leads me to take stock of the journey so far.

Act I - Developing Curiosity

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind … Neil Armstrong

I was much loved by my mother and her parents and, despite my parents’ separation and having no relationship with my father from the age of six, I had a happy childhood:

• spending time exploring my grandparents’ creek and getting muddy clothes, much to my mother’s chagrin

• collecting caterpillars and watching them develop into their adult stage - the emperor gum moth being a particular favourite

• reading a lot of science fiction books, with A. E. van Vogt and Philip K. Dick particular favourites of mine

• bush walking with mates and collecting wild blackberries. One time I found a discarded flare canister that became my school pencil case: it was very cool.

I saw the Moon landing on TV and I became an enthusiastic junior scientist with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

Act II - Awakening Adolescence

To read is to know we are not alone … C.S. Lewis

My mother remarried and we moved to Broken Hill when I was about 15.

Can you imagine living one day on the coast and the next in the desert? It was a rude awakening. I left all my friends behind and had to re-establish my social network all over again. And this during the difficult teenage years.

Nevertheless, like much of my life, it turned out to be a good time:

• I had an amazing Physics teacher in Alan Melbourne, who inspired my interest in science. He encouraged me to enter a science competition which I won (I was the only entry!).

  

• the TV was very poor, it was pre-Internet, pre-gaming consoles, and pre-personal computers, so I read even more than before. Sometimes four books a week.

• I learnt to drive, play badminton, and - a popular pastime in BH - drink.

I went from strange kid from the coast to SRC president and school captain: it turns out that taking responsibility isn’t all that difficult, you just have to believe in yourself.

Act III - Expanding Consciousness

Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him! … Friedrich Nietzsche

As soon as I finished high school, I “got outta Dodge” by attending the ANU in Canberra to study for my Bachelor of Science. I lived on campus in Burton Hall with several hundred other impressionable, horny young folk.

The three years I spent there were some of the best of my life:

• I met my first wife and made lifelong friends.

• I experimented with mind-altering substances (nothing too hard) and drank more alcohol than the official guidelines recommend.

• I learned, or perhaps honed, the thinking skills that provided me with a long-term career: critical thinking, analytical thinking, and lateral thinking.

I longed to be a theoretical physicist but alas, the maths proved too much for me in first year. So in my second year I switched to computing topics along with pure and applied mathematics. And I loved it.

When I finished uni, I joined the Australian Customs Service (now the Australian Border Force) as a Computer Systems Officer Grade 1, i.e. a programmer. It was fantastic!

Computers cost millions of dollars and people were comparatively cheap, so we threw bodies at every problem. The transaction processing monitor is single-threaded? No worries, just rewrite it to be multi-threaded. Want to use a Sperry mainframe with an IBM network? No worries, rewrite the communications controllers to support it.

This inevitably led to problems when it came time to upgrade and is an approach I definitely do not support now, but at the time it was very empowering.

I rose through the ranks and eventually to the Senior Executive Service, where my love of my job was overcome by my hatred of bureaucracy. I left to join the private sector.

Act IV - Scene 1 - Human Fallibility

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. … Charles Dickens

I married at 27, had a son at 30, and I was divorced by age 31.

This was my first marriage.

Divorce was a necessarily painful experience. I did not want to repeat my own history as a child of a broken marriage for my son, so I made sure that I stayed in regular contact. That was a lot of driving between Sydney and Canberra, and later on, between Sydney and Yass.

We got through it.

I remain friends with my ex-wife and I am very close to my son. He is now a parent to two children of his own, so I am now a grandfather as well.

Act IV - Scene 2 - Human Resilience

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. … George Santayana

I married again at 35, had two boys and three girls, and I was divorced by age 57.

Two of our girls were born very prematurely and died shortly after. These were two separate events. Coping with this tragedy was character building.

This was my second marriage and I was devastated to go through this process again. But we got through it.

Again, I remain friends with my second ex-wife and I remain close with my children.

I came out of this process emotionally stronger and at peace with who I am and what is important to me.

Act V - Scene 1 - Future Optimism

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. … Friedrich Nietzsche

We are now back at the start of this story with another quote by Nietzsche (he had so many good ones).

I am now retired and working on selling my house.

I am pleased to say that I am in a new relationship that has sprung out of a mutual friend’s recommendation. This has been somewhat of a surprise to both of us.

I have aortic stenosis which will require open-heart surgery soon, but I am optimistic about the future:

• I am otherwise healthy and young for my age
• I have diverse hobbies like motorcycle riding, kayaking, music festival-going, quilt-making, beekeeping, reading, walking, etc.
• I have found a wonderful partner
• I have a great circle of friends

This is one of many scenes to come in perhaps the penultimate act.

I can’t wait to see what unfolds next.