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Shift

Its been awhile since I wrote something. As you can tell from the series of blogposts, most of them are technical writings, but I feel that recently, I’ve shifted my focus. Whether it’s a conscious shift or an unconscious one, I’ve found myself drawing away from trying to be that “technical” person, a person obsessed with learning and trying to be the best in my field.
That’s kind of ironic isn’t it? When you’re always told that the 10x engineer has to be the one who is obsessed with his work, and anything less than that is not worthy. And so you push yourself to study, buy all these books, subscribe to all these courses. I was enjoying it for a bit, being a cert hunter, joining discord channels and forums, signing up for random courses.
Maybe it’s a phase? Maybe i’ve passed that phase? It’s reminiscent of the book I read a long time ago called “The Second Mountain” by David Brooks, where I think I’ve conquered the first mountain of feeding the ego, of self-discovery, of proving my worth through toil. Is it the global maxima? Most definitely not. I don’t proclaim to be at the pinnacle of my Cyber career. But is it enough? Probably yes. Another certification or course isn’t going to make me feel more satisfied in my career. I’ve grinded and done enough CTFs to know that I’ve had enough of it, and it’s really just obscure puzzles.
I think I’m at a place now where i’ve accumulated enough knowledge and experience to be proficient in what I do. There’s always going to be new discoveries and breakthroughs happening in my field, and for sure I’ll keep up to date with those. But what i’m shifting away from is the constant need to strive for another achievement, be it CVEs, bug bounty, or another Offsec Certification.
I’m just rambling, but perhaps a good TLDR is this; I’m done doing certifications and courses and hunting for external achievements to validate my career. Instead, I’m content focusing on only what’s required for me to continue to be good at what I do. This isn’t a call to stop learning entirely, but rather to take the foot off the pedal just a little.
It’s also a life recalibration. What else do I want to focus on now instead? Here’s a new priority list i’ve came up for myself:
  1. Health and fitness
    1. I think I’ve always been above average on my fitness, but I want to take this up a notch. At 35 years old, I think i still have some juice left in my tank. Honestly, I wish I took this more seriously in my 20s, but I’ll like to blame it on the lack of finances. Doing BJJ and having a gym membership without a steady flow of income is hard. It’s only now that i’ve got some middle-age-boredom-expandable income that i’m able to do this. So it’s doing a sport, any sport, + going to the gym. The gym grows and maintains muscles mass, while the sport engages my mind, and sets a goal for the gym to be functional. The current theme is BJJ, something which I’ve been doing on and off across many years. Previously it was bouldering, but I think i’ve gotten quite bored of it even after investing 200+ on a pair of fancy climbing shoes. I should really sell that away.
    2. So far what I’ve been doing is 2 days gym, 2 days BJJ, and 1-2days of slow cardio. It’s been a good schedule that works for me, and i’ve lost about 5kg since i’ve did that. Not sure how sustainable is it, but we’ll see! Hopefully I don’t get injured to the point of surgery again.
  1. Other Life skills
    1. Enough of Cyber, CTF, VDPs, Courses. Piano? Drumming? Drawing? What sparks joy, and is not too pricey to pick up? I’ve been tempted to pick up the acoustic guitar again. Snowboarding is too seasonal, skateboarding is too boring. Maybe embrace the gamer in me and complete every single Pokemon game there is. Honestly not too sure about this part yet.
So that said, I’ll probably veer away from any deep research or CVE hunting, unless it really interests me or is required for work. No more downloading 50+ open source projects on GitHub to so source code analysis, or joining every single Bug Bounty program, or scouring the web for the next best course. I’ve contemplated CISSP, but I think reading the material alone is fine. I don’t want to take the examination. I want to live life, and climb the second mountain.