I grew to believe that after a certain period of not being in contact with someone, you have to approach them as a new person when you meet them again. That time for me, is 5-7 years. We have old friends, often childhood friends, with whom we might want to keep our childhood ways with when we reunite. It's convenient to reminisce about our past, but sometimes it represents a time which time and wisdom have mandated that we move on from.

So it's with that thought that I write this. I've been known for numerous things in the past, projects, work, friendships, character traits etc. It's easy to live in a continuous process where one doesn't take a hard reset and reinvent themselves.

Who am I?

Well, I know who I am. This is more, "what am I?".

I'm a husband, a father, a son. From a family perspective, those things are permanent or sticky, changed by significant life events. It's not something you reinvent yourself from or reset from after 5-7 years.

So, as a starting point, I'm those 3 to my immediate family. We often let what we spend most of our time on to define us. I'm not an accountant/software engineer before those 3 roles. We change careers, we don't change our children.

On Work

I used to be an accountant, however I've long left that role. I was a South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) member. I fell behind on my membership dues, and I was terminated. They helped me make a decision I was always postponing, which was costing me R7000 each year.

Frankly, the odds of me ever returning to the profession as an accountant are probably 0. So, I'm shedding that affiliation. I can't change my education, I'll always be educated as an accountant. I can however choose whether I want that to define me. It no longer defines me.

These days I work as a software/data engineer. A career built on top of Rust and open source work. I haven't been active in the open source community for a while. I'm giving myself 2 more years to determine whether I can be active again, and thus whether I want to define myself as an open source contributor. For now, I won't refer myself as such.

On Projects

I could say a lot about projects. One that used to define me was Moving Gauteng. It's our child with Marc. As a child, surely the relationship is a sticky one based on what I said above?

The project remains with potential, if only we would be able to fund it with our time, as it so craves that time. It also represented an emotional avenue for us when we were going through bad times in our lives. This demands a separate post, so I'll leave it here.

On Friends

TODO.