Life After Castration

On unemployment, self-worth and starting over

When I was a child, we took a field trip to a farm. It was one of those “see where your food comes from and learn about agriculture” things on paper, but in practice, it was a glorified petting zoo. Or, that’s what most of the kids found most interesting, anyway. As a kid from the city, this was the first time I had seen some of these animals I had only heard of up close. In my young mind, a cow or a donkey may as well have been a mythical creature for all the experience I had with it. I remember seeing a horse for the first time and it was so large that it may as well have been a dragon to my young eyes. I was fascinated with the equine beast- after all, I was already obsessed with knights, and this was like seeing a small piece of that fantasy world come to life. Because of this obsession, I stayed back to look at the horses while the rest of my class moved on to the next animal. I lingered and looked at the horse with quiet reverence, in awe of the power and freedom it represented to me. But one of the farmers returned, and I hid behind a barrel, afraid I would get in trouble for getting separated from my class. What I saw next would stick with me for the rest of my life.

The farmer that returned was leading a smaller, younger horse. The horse was energetic and full of life, with a pep in his step. Still young and headstrong, pulling against the reins playfully. The farmer guides him to a stall and is joined by two other men. One of them pulls out a syringe and injects the young horse, it makes a small noise of pain and then slowly calms down. One of the men holds its reins while the other rubbed its back soothingly. The third took out a strange instrument that looked like clamps from a black bag. He then proceeded to use a small knife and the clamps and went to work on the horse. It whinnied weakly, scared and confused, as it lost something. I watched in fear and confusion, much like the horse, unable to conceptualize what was happening as the horse was gelded. The horse looked into the farmers’ eyes before the end, perhaps looking for comfort in the moment of confusion and pain, but its look was not returned. The farmer was merely doing his job, and this was just another day for him. Castration was the most significant thing that ever happened to that horse, but for the farmer, it was just another day at the office.

I feel like a joke about severance is in order

Decades later, I found myself in the same place as that horse. It was a Wednesday. Last Wednesday, as a matter of fact. Another day at the office. Coffee, checking pointless emails and then getting back to the grind. I spent half the morning working on a long standing and tedious project. I heated up my lunch (a nutritious if not exciting meal) and I received a call as I sat down to eat my warmed-over chicken and rice. It was the project manager from my staffing agency- Ashley or something like that. Well, she was Jessica, she took the role Ashley used to fill. Ashley had moved on. She said she was on site and wanted to touch base. I made my way to the conference room she asked me to meet at, hoping it would be quick since the staffing agency occasionally wants to check in. Kind of a waste of time, but hey, sometimes they brought pizza and that beats the contents of my Tupperware. I sat down with new Ashley, and we exchanged the usual pleasantries. She asked how my day was, how the assignment was going, etc. I gave all the stock answers, hoping to end things quickly now that I saw there was no pizza to be had. Well, things did end quickly.

Digging your own grave somehow feels more dignified

That’s when she told me my contract as ending and my employers thanked me for my years of service and that they appreciated it, but they wanted to part ways. Not “fired”, that’s too aggressive. Merely an end of a contract. No warning, no coaching, just an abrupt severance and a request to turn in my badge and company property. No talk from my boss, no saying goodbye to coworkers. Not even any fucking pizza. I was offered the customary cardboard box for my things, but that somehow felt undignified. I put what I wanted in my backpack and carried out the small bonsai tree I kept at my desk, head held high. On my way out, I saw my boss passing me in the hall. I looked at him in the eyes and he briefly met my gaze and then looked away. Not in shame or disgust, but with all the indifference the farmer had for the horse all those years ago. I had been gelded and put to pasture.

There’s something about losing your job that can tear out the core of your very being. Not just the loss of income, that much is obvious, but a type of psychic wound. A loss of ability to project yourself into the world, like a shield was gone. You no longer have agency, and the things that would have seemed like obstacles to overcome are morphed into the whims of a cruel god- inscrutable and unknowable. Not to be dealt with or engaged with, but survived. Your possessions change from comforts to possible burdens or bargaining tools. A small carnal comfort, like a coffee or a meal out with loved ones, shifts from an enticing offer to a fraying fiber in the rope you cling to desperately, trying not to fall into the chasm. Memories of a well-earned modest vacation or night out shifts to a frivolous expenditure and the happy memory is tainted for the metamorphosis. Not even your memories are safe.

In my recent quest applying for jobs, I posted a short note that read: “applying for jobs is a humiliation ritual”. A "humiliation ritual" is a deliberate act meant to publicly shame or degrade someone, often as punishment or social control. It typically inflicts psychological distress through embarrassment and loss of dignity, sometimes following ritualistic patterns. This is a quote that seemed to resonate with people, with it getting engagement beyond my average by orders of magnitudes. I was met with replies of condolences or similar stories about how unemployment ruined people’s lives for years. Or how in some cases, they never truly recovered. People also resonated with how awful the process of applying for jobs is and how it almost seems like the process was designed to break the spirit. That’s the humiliation ritual. Because there is something beneath the boring pomp and circumstance of the office park haka dance that is the process of applying for jobs. An unspoken threat of violence. It shows how far we can fall, how much of our well-being relies on factors outside of our control. As I went to the bank to cash my final check and saw a homeless elderly woman begging for change standing in the cold at an intersection, the tip put on the point of this contrast felt like a knife against my throat.

The worst part is the silence that follows. Not just the loss of a paycheck, but the empty hole where meaning used to be. The dull hum of a workspace, the clicking of keyboards, the pointless small talk by the coffee machine—all replaced by an emptiness that you feel in your bones. The first day, you wake up at the usual time, muscle memory guiding you through a morning meant for a life that no longer exists. But there’s no commute, no emails, no tasks waiting for you. Just the quiet mockery of a world that moves on without you, as if you were never there.

And the questions start gnawing at you. Was I only worth the money I made? Did I ever really belong there? The years spent clawing out of poverty—was it all just a temporary escape? You tell yourself you’re more than your job, that a man is more than his labor, but the world doesn’t let you believe it for long. You see it in the way people hesitate when they ask what you do, in the way the world suddenly feels less hospitable, like you've been marked as lesser. And deep down, in the part of you that remembers the struggle, the part that never fully believed in comfort, you wonder if you’ve only been returned to where you were always meant to be.

More and more, I feel the slow erosion of purpose, like sand slipping through my fingers. I had spent years clawing my way up from a working-class existence, trading sweat and exhaustion for something cleaner, something more stable. Even though I hate the industry, I had a certain pride in saying that I “work in tech”. Maybe it was because I came from a poor background where very few people in my home city did much more than factory work or retail. There was pride in that, in knowing I had broken free from the cycle that kept so many trapped. But now, without the job, without the title, what was I? The distance I had put between myself and my roots now felt less like an achievement and more like isolation. I had traded calloused hands for a higher salary, but when that salary was taken away, all that remained was an uneasy emptiness. I wasn’t one of them anymore, but I wasn’t anything else either. Just a man standing in the wreckage of what he thought was security.

And in that moment, I felt much like that horse—gutted, stripped of something vital. We don’t talk about it, not openly, but in this world, a man’s worth is tied to his ability to provide. To be without a job is to be without purpose, and to be without purpose is to be invisible. I felt it almost immediately, the way the world looked through me now. My routines disrupted, my sense of self shaken, I drifted through my own life like a guest overstaying his welcome. The life I had built, the comforts I had earned, all felt like they belonged to someone else—someone who had proven himself worthy in a way I no longer could. And if I wasn’t that man anymore, then who the hell was I?

“We wish you luck in your next venture”

But in the bleakness of that moment, when the weight of uncertainty pressed down on me, I found something unexpected—a lifeline. Friends reached out, some offering condolences, others just wanting to grab lunch, to sit and talk like nothing had changed. People shared their own stories of losing jobs, of feeling adrift, of questioning their worth when their careers were stripped away. I realized I wasn’t alone in this, that what felt like a personal failure was really just another iteration of a system that discards people the moment they are no longer useful. And yet, in that moment of loss, I saw something far more valuable than any job title or paycheck.

For so long, I had poured myself into work, grinding away under the illusion that success would bring meaning. But losing my job shattered that illusion, revealing the truth that had been there all along—work isn’t the point. It never was. It’s easy to get caught up in the machine, to measure self-worth in promotions and productivity, but the real purpose of it all is much simpler. We work to support the people we love, to carve out moments of peace and joy in a world that constantly tries to take them from us. The job, the career, the endless hustle—none of it means anything without the people who make life worth living.

So maybe this wasn’t an ending after all. Maybe it was a forced reset, a chance to remember why I was working so hard in the first place. Not to prove anything to an indifferent employer. Not to have success to rub in the face of people I don't care about. Not for pointless material possessions. Not to chase some fleeting sense of status. But to build a life that matters, surrounded by the people who do.