Musings of a millennial

 I am effectively an unemployed Bsc Mathematics and Physics graduate, the opportunity I thought would help doesn't even have a fixed stipend from the get go and you are required to finish a "course" first before enrolling on the actual internship and it happens to be remote and given the fact that my laptop is broken and network problems, I am not even sure if it's possible to genuinely salvage this opportunity as it were... I have been looking for actual employment, actual internships which allow one to gain valuable experience in data analysis, software development, business analysis, risk analysis etc.  The stress of not getting any actual job opportunities and getting some interviews but no job offer takes a toll on one's mental health.  Another thing that often puts me at a disadvantage is inconsistent performance academically at university, I have a few As here and there but there are also modules I have failed and to some employers, failing a module automat

 I have noticed that some people have no problem accepting the reality of all sorts of privileges (class privilege, white privilege, cis-het male privilege etc) BUT once you start mentioning just how significant the role that luck plays in life they get uncomfortable. The existence of privilege is one form luck takes but luck can take various forms and the role that it plays in shaping the trajectories of our lives is far more significant than most people are willing to admit.  Being at the right place at the right time, having the right social capital and resources in general, having relatively good health, having access to good opportunities, having the right tools to access those opportunities and capitalise on them to a significant degree depends on luck. Being conventionally intelligent, not having a disease that affects your ability to be productive and operate at your full potential is being lucky, just being alive is being lucky given the number of people who die everyday. Sudd

 So on the 26th of January this year I lost my sister to leukemia. It's a trauma I struggle to deal with, it's hard to believe that she is actually gone, it feels so unbelievably cruel and unfair but I suppose such is life... My late big sister shaped me into being the person I am today and the positive contributions she made to my life are impossible to quantify or even just put into words. I absolutely loved my big sister, perhaps much more than I thought. I keep my late sister's copy of The Lord of The Rings on my bed side to remind myself of her, she was really into fantasy amongst many other things. I seem to have misplaced the copy of Lord of the Rings and I am having a little existential crisis, that book just reminded me of her and now I am not sure where I put it.  I feel sad today, I'm missing my sister and misplacing this book is only just exercabating things. Grief is such a messy complicated thing and it's definitely a nonlinear process, in the world of

 I have noticed that there's the notion that one(unemployed person) "must start somewhere" and this is usually code for heavy exploitation i.e you must be willing to get exploited first with low wages that can't keep up with inflation and rising costs of even bare necessities (food,fuel,electricity, rent/housing etc) in order to gain the necessary skills and experience that will help hopefully climb the corporate ladder and get better paying opportunities and because of how dire(high unemployment and under-employment, poverty, inequality etc) the socioeconomic situation is in South Africa, a lot of people allow themselves to get exploited just to survive out of pure desperation but that doesn't make it right.  Firstly,I think people have the wrong idea about social mobility in the country, sure there are a few exceptions who come from poor backgrounds and were perhaps exploited at first but later climbed the corporate ladder and now have well paying jobs because p

 I graduated in April from the University of South Africa with a Bsc degree in Mathematics and Physics, quite honestly things haven't been going particularly well. I have numerous interests some of them include being fascinated and interested in the renewable sector particularly the financial modeling aspect of it. I enjoy using Mathematics to solve practical problems and so far haven't had the opportunity to do that at a corporate level and to do that with a renewable energy company would be amazing. I am familiar with Microsoft Excel and Word, I know some Python, C++ and SQL. I just haven't had the opportunity to properly prove myself and I would love such an opportunity because I would be contributing positively to society at large given the nature of climate change, clearly we need to stop using fossil fuels. I would absolutely give my all if an opportunity to engage in financial modeling of renewable sources of energy was provided. I am hard working, disciplined, deter

 For a couple of years now I have been flirting with a philosophical outlook called antinatalism, it(the philosophical scbool of thought) essentially views birth negatively for a myriad(suffering of humans is probably the most important reason for me) of reasons and asserts that life is not worth starting.   I have noticed that in some antinatalist circles  some people seem to hold views that are deeply anti-poor, some seem to outright endorse eugenics(unintentionally or not) and other deeply problematic worldviews . Some people who think of themselves as antinatalists seem to believe that poor people shouldn't have children on the basis of them being poor and poverty gets treated as a personal moral failing even though in reality poverty is systematic and often caused by a range of circumstances that people don't have control over. In South Africa for instance, black people are disproportionately affected by poverty mainly due to apartheid, colonialism and poor governance by t