Member-only story
Prisoners of experience
Do we still have a choice, or are we prisoners of experience — forever?
“Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.“ — George MacDonald
This is a story of failure. And of a landscape that we’re a part of. I learned a lot from it, and I hope you will learn from it, too. It’s important to share failure stories, as we often only talk about successes. Sometimes, though, reading about things that didn’t work brings as much, if not more, benefit.
Let me tell you then how I tried going against the flow — and failed. Before I will begin, though, I’d like to set the context right. I am a self-employed freelancer, running a profitable business in the UK. I work with many clients at once, and rarely on a single project. The majority of my work requires me to speak and interact with people. There’s some writing on top of it all, but scheduling plays an important part in my professional life. I am also a perfectionist, and it’s hard for me to be spontaneous. I am trying to fight it. It might be to do with my upbringing and learned behaviour or to do with my interests. There’s never enough time. You might know what does this feel like. Stopping and breathing are important but difficult.
I do consider myself privileged, though. I am a white CIS male, fairly successful in life, relatively healthy and happy. I accept that things I am going to tell you about might seem like insignificant problems in comparison to what you’re going through. I do respect that. All that I am trying is to leverage my privilege to highlight an issue that I consider important. Take from it what you want, discard what seems useless or not interesting. Thank you for reading.
Escaping the big tech
I am a UX designer and an advocate of mindful, accessible and inclusive design. I speak about it at conferences, I write about it in my newsletter and I get hired because I care. I want to practice what I preach. I always wanted to run my business ethically and transparently. I am appalled at many issues surrounding our digital lives and the injustice that we are at the heart of.
