One of the things that has always weirded me out about San Francisco tech culture was how much of it felt like The Truman Show.
A world where every meal is catered for, laundry is taken care of, and gym memberships are paid for is certainly nice, but there's something about it that distinctly doesn't feel like the real world. We were told as children that the real world would consist of certain roles and responsibilities. I believe that SF tech culture offers its inhabitants a culled-down version of life that eschews these responsibilities.
Ostensibly, this is a godsend. The privilege of free food, incredible wages, and extravagant perks is not one that is afforded to many. In the day-to-day trenches of life, though, I've seen it manifested as less than ideal.
If there's one observation that I've come to lately, it's this: unless well-trained, the human mind will always find some game to occupy itself with, some kind of sandbox to play in, some mental conundrum to think through. This is why, I believe, Canadian software engineers in the Valley love to think and talk about visas. Because the human mind evolved to keep us alive, a topic that could pose as a threat to our security or well-being tends to be the topic we focus on most.
This means that regardless of how much complexity tech companies take out of their employees' lives, employees will still experience dissatisfaction in their lives, unless they make a vested effort to create their own satisfying life experiences.
Curiously enough, when I left the SF tech community and the benefits that came with it, logistical complexities in my life still tended to take care of themselves one way or another.
And it occurred to me that the experience of life is not about having as much taken care of as possible. It's about gaining the confidence that no matter what happens, you have the ability to take care of it yourself.
In that sense, taking the hard way -- the path with less support and less taken care of -- can actually be the easier way.
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