Burnout and Depression

2024 was a mental slog for me. It started with a heavy bout of depression followed by burnout with work. My depression was primarily rooted in my personal and professional aspirations of where I want to be in life versus where I am today. My burnout stemmed from having the support I needed from my leadership. It was made clear to me that my work was not valued and that took a lot out of me. I had days where it felt like I was having a concussion.

I quit my job and in 2025 I’m taking time off for self-care and focus my energy on some passion projects.

Passion Projects

1. If there is an opportunity to continue working with the City of New Orleans and the Spanish Embassy on getting new ceramic signs, I will do so,

2. Alongside that project, I will focus on publishing more slave codes on slavecodes.org and publish blog posts there on how the laws from then still show up in different ways to this day,

3. Contribute to the blacksky-algorithms/rsky repository,

4. I hope to also make a yew based interactive map of the Trans-Atlantic and Inter-American slave trade¹

   

   This map encompasses the trafficking of enslaved people from Africa throughout the Americas. I’d like to make it interactive so people could ask questions like, “how many enslaved people were transported to present day Brazil between 1700 and 1725? And where did they come from in Africa?” I think that would be meaningful for people to learn and get some idea of an origin story that way. I would also like to attempt to make what I call the Drexciya map. That is, a map of the enslaved lives lost en-route to the Americas, and

5. If I get through these projects and wish to do more, I may work on a Linux sub-module idea that enables either ejson or SOPS secret storage using the the Linux key retention and requesting services.

Looking Forward to What 2025 has in Store for Me

I’ve got my goals, passion projects, and time for myself this year. It’s been over ten years since I’ve taken any extended period of time off and I don’t think there is a better time than now to enjoy this.

References