The Existential Crisis of Middle-Aged Programmers

The Existential Crisis of Middle-Aged Coders

I. The Generation That Benefited from 13 Years of Boom Times

Coders born between 1985 and 1995 who worked at major tech companies caught a huge boom in the decade or so after graduation. But even if we consider only those who stayed at major tech companies and had relatively smooth promotions (many others never worked at these companies or changed careers), their current ranks are generally around P7–P8. Very few have reached P9 or 3-2, and very few managed to cash out stock options for substantial sums during an IPO. Over more than a decade, their pretax earnings have totaled RMB 8–10 million, with after-tax earnings of RMB 5–6 million, plus stocks or options worth anywhere from several hundred thousand to a few million yuan. The main windfall for this generation of coders was the relatively stable, high salaries at major tech companies, rather than startup IPOs.

A minority received help from their families of origin, bought homes early, and benefited from the property boom. Even this group has given back most of its paper gains during the downturn. Many others bought at the peak and are now trapped, while quite a few also have to support their families of origin. All of them remain far from the Silicon Valley dream of an IPO windfall they once imagined.

The gray rhino of being laid off as an older employee had always been something to joke about; only when it actually approached and trampled them did panic suddenly set in. These people were laid off from major tech companies one after another in 2023–2024. Their outlook underwent a fundamental change, and their petty-bourgeois dreams shattered.

They now generally face an age crisis, with layoffs recurring from time to time. They cannot quite settle into lying flat, yet no longer have the strength to keep competing. They frantically send out résumés, vent to one another, and research lying flat in smaller towns, remaining child-free as dual-income couples, and retirement, while still feeling unwilling to give up and afraid of meaninglessness. AI brings new opportunities as well as new challenges. Severe existential anxiety is widespread.

II. Looking at Other Groups and Classes

If even this group is in such a position, what about computer science graduates who finished university after 2018? What about ordinary people across every industry?

Conversely, ordinary people in other industries suffer more, yet their existential crises are less severe. This is what makes petty-bourgeois malaise so frightening: the backlash from elitism, the identity of the exam-taking achiever, and related issues.

That ordinary people retain their simple goodness, sincerity, and beauty despite their suffering is incontrovertible evidence of innate wholeness. Ordinary people also have fewer karmic obstructions than the petty and micro bourgeoisie, so they are closer to awakening.

During periods of downward mobility, however, the petty and micro bourgeoisie often become even more frantically far-right in the face of existential crises. This is an observation in Erich Fromm’s celebrated *Escape from Freedom*, his study of Nazism among Germans and the crisis of modernity.

Most individual problems are problems of the times. For the petty and micro bourgeoisie, psychological self-rescue requires Marxism.

Related reading: “Petty-Bourgeois Malaise,” “The Malaise of Small-Town Exam-Taking Achievers,” and “The Fundamental Contradictions of University Students.”

III. Alienation in Life at Major Tech Companies

Complicated feedback, inefficiency, bureaucracy, slacking off, involution, and internal friction. A lack of accomplishment, meaning, connection, and a sense of existence.

The path to a million-yuan annual salary is “chicken ribs”—too little meat to satisfy, yet too much to throw away: it cannot truly move you into another class, cannot be sustained over the long term, and is not enough to let you lie flat in luxury. Yet giving it up to think independently, explore, and pursue your own endeavors is too difficult.

Institutionalization like that in *The Shawshank Redemption*, becoming a long-serving, docile “white rabbit” at a major tech company. Personal dependence on major tech companies. This is why so many people have a strong feudal and bureaucratic mentality.

The essence of 996 is not efficiency or hard work, but a lack of private life, blurred boundaries, the loss of agency, and being swallowed up by the system. This happens both intentionally and unintentionally.

IV. Existential Crisis

Empty-heart syndrome, meaninglessness, emptiness.

The loss of a sense of superiority and a sense of existence: the frustration and loss of identities they have relied on all along—high IQ, genius, IT elite, graduate of an elite Project 985 university, elitist, social Darwinist, successful person, and so on. Feelings of emptiness, meaninglessness, and unease.

Social upheaval, downward class mobility, technological change, and AI anxiety intensify the unease.

Lost, with nowhere for the soul to rest. Many seek a further shore in philosophy and spiritual learning, but this is merely elitism in the form of spiritual-practice malaise.

Death anxiety.

V. Broken Connections with the Five Elements of Life: Studies, Career, Social Life, Body, and Mind

When we are not in a state of connection, we are often in a state of entanglement. (“Connection vs. Entanglement”)

(1) Losing connection with technology, scholarship, the IT industry, and professional networks;

Losing the social skills and mental energy needed to socialize.

Losing the confidence and mental energy needed to plan a career and adapt to change.

Losing the courage to develop independently, explore independently, and live independently, even with the support of a sum of money that most ordinary people do not have.

Losing the confidence, positivity, curiosity, sense of a bright future, flexibility, and adaptability of their undergraduate and graduate years;

So when they see the AI wave, what they feel is fear rather than excitement or inspiration.

Entangled in major tech companies’ systems of internal friction and involution, weekly report writing, and technology stacks.

(2) Losing connection with one’s own body and mind;

Losing the experience of innate wholeness, unconditional confidence and existence, and the positivity and adaptability with which they grew independently as young people from small towns. Are today’s challenges really harder than those faced by that young person from a small town?

Elitist social Darwinism, losing connection with ordinary people, and fearing lying flat and being useless.

Losing agency and the ability to think independently. Losing stability, confidence, and clarity, and suffering the karmic fires of ignorance. Ethical discipline, concentration, and wisdom; right concentration, clarity, and emptiness.

Entangled in various forms of bodily abuse, neglect, and indulgence.

Lost in various forms of psychological collapse, confusion, indulgence, and entanglement in karmic obstructions.

(3) Losing connection with other people

A narrow worldview, *The Truman Show*, the influence of the people around you.

Surrounded by empty-heart syndrome: one’s family of origin, a nuclear family formed without much thought, classmates and colleagues, and Haidian District’s atmosphere of pushing children relentlessly to achieve.

The syndrome of being surrounded by the petty and micro bourgeoisie: living in their world—Houchangcun + Huilongguan, Caoheting + Jiuting, Zhihu and Douyin on one’s phone—and losing an understanding of unpretentious people, proletarians, the public, the world, nature, and the universe.

Involution among peers: few friends, only classmates and colleagues; competition, envy, and jealousy among peers.

Entangled in all kinds of poor-quality, toxic relationships: toxic mirroring, idealization, and twinship alter egos.

(4) Losing connection with society, history, and the world

Losing connection with the countryside, workers, and peasants. Their understanding of society and history is a kind of homegrown, elitist, social-Darwinist right-wing narrative.

Without a left-wing concern for ordinary people and those at the bottom of society, they naturally lack a deep understanding of and concern for their own fate.

(5) Losing connection with nature and the universe

Spending weekends and holidays traveling, hiking, and going abroad as intensely as possible, seeking the ultimate natural scenery and posting all kinds of exquisite images of their breakthroughs on WeChat Moments, yet finding it difficult to establish a real connection with nature.

VI. Directions for Self-Rescue

I have written many articles on the following, so I will not elaborate here. See my earlier article “On Living in the Present” and the series on connection.

1. Living in the present

Keep a diary to record awareness, take walks, gather your energy inward, and do small things.

For example, a friend recently began limiting sugar, exercising, walking to and from work, and keeping a diary.

1. Connection

Build connections with the five elements of life: studies, career, social life, body, and mind. For example, a friend recently began writing a technical blog and facing AI directly.

Connect with yourself: innate wholeness, lava, your past self, your present self, and so on. “How Ordinary People Can Connect with Innate Wholeness,” “Be Grateful to Your Past Self, Be Grateful to Your Present Self.”

Connect with others. “Choosing Your Social Relationships.”

Connect with the simple goodness, sincerity, and beauty of working people at the bottom of society. “How to Connect with the Simple Goodness, Sincerity, and Beauty of Working People at the Bottom of Society,” “Literature from Pinduoduo’s Comment Sections and Healing at the Produce Market.”

Connect with nature: unconditional existence, freedom, and ease. “Why Is It Difficult to Connect with Nature?”