#i'd be hard pressed to not acknowledge my privilege

[chongoblog]

Trying not to write a whole essay on why I love 3 Minutes and how I see it as going from being so closed off and only showing who you "have to" be, to telling some stranger about your struggles casually while you heat up some ramen. Good stuff.

I’m not gonna stop you. In fact, I’m gonna give you some ammunition by talking about Three Minutes because it’s obviously one of the more Real songs from my perspective.

So for those who weren’t following me around August of last year, it was a big month in my life full of a lot of change. One change in particular is the one mentioned in the context of Three Minutes. Prior to that month/that recording, I had a bit of an identity crisis that went hand in hand with the sort of depression mentioned in the song. I had this grand divide between my online persona and my existence in reality. Part of it was likely because my dad worked in information services and reminded me just how much employers would google people in order to find out if they were a good fit for their company (not to blame the guy, as he wanted what was best) and partly because there were people in my life at the time who took little to no interest in the things I did online.

In that month, I kinda tore down those walls and let the things I do online shine in who I was as a person facing reality, the people who didn’t care weren’t a part of my life anymore, and in terms of the job hunt, I had the courage to not just sell myself as someone who can do code and do math stuff.

In fact, I did a bit of research to remember which days were which, and the day I went downtown (the downtown job wasn’t one I was interested, but it was the first interview I’d been to since I’d been fired from the first job), I got a call from a staffing firm that my friend had connected me to. They asked me the standard fare of what coding languages I could work with, where I went to college, etc. At the end of the call, they asked if there was anything else they should know about me. And that’s when I told them that I did have a passion to create games. It’s what I wanted to do with the degree, and it’s what got me interested in computer science to begin with. And that comment is what made them say “huh.....well there IS a company that works with slot machines, which is kinda like video games. They’re looking for someone who fits your criteria.�� In fact, I think that comment went even farther than I think, because at first I didn’t get that job, but then the worker at the staffing firm ended up bringing me up afterwards saying “are you SURE you dont want this guy? He really seems to have a passion for games and be a perfect fit” and after a second discussion, they found out that they only turned me down at first because the guy only thought he could hire two people, when really he could hire four to five.

In hindsight, it seems stupid that I didn’t mention it to businesses earlier. Like I said, video games, whether it be making them, designing them, analyzing them, or playing them is a deep-seated passion of mine and very much a part of who I am. I was so afraid it would make me seem like less of a candidate for their position because it seemed immature, but that didn’t make it NOT a part of who I am and what I was passionate about.

August 2018 was a great month for me, and I hope that change was visible as hell in Three Minutes.