A conference is a good concept in theory but entirely absurd in practice. You take a complete break from your daily life, delegate all your responsibilities to others, hope that your house and your class does not burn down in your absence and head off to some obscure place to listen to strangers give talks on mildly interesting topics. Something like 90% of the speakers I’ve encountered are bad speakers. I mostly sit in the back and do my own thing. And yet, that 10% makes it worth attending the talks. But this much would have never been enough. I would have never kept going to conferences if it was just for the math.

Thanks to conferences, I have managed to travel the world. I have been to places which I would never have thought of going otherwise. It has been an adventure. I have also made a few friends at these, although I am not very good at keeping in touch with them. But still, in the unlikely event that I was to run into them in the future, I am sure we’ll have a good time.

Since the lockdown, I have been attending a few conferences and talks here and there and it fucking sucks. All the good parts are gone and only the bad parts remain. The only saving grace is that you don’t have to leave your home and can avoid sitting in god-awful chairs designed for toddlers. Whatever this is, is just not worth the hassle. There are better things to do in life.

RIP conferences.