Why I'm Learning Sumerian

Summary

It's 5:43 a.m.The desk lamp hums softly. The house is still. The old wooden floor creaks beneath me as I shift in my chair. The air is cold against my feet.I stare at the page in my notebook, at the mystifying symbols I've been trying to memorize. Sumerian, written in cuneiform, was humanity's first writing system. A language that hasn't been spoken in four thousand years.The same question circles again: Why am I doing this?Why am I trying to learn Sumerian, a language that hasn't been spoken for five thousand years? It was written in wedges on clay tablets. There is no practical reason for me to learn it. No career benefit, no secret project.The honest answer is that one year ago, I would have called this insane.That same year, a project nearly broke meThe Project That Broke Me and What It Taught Me About BurnoutWhen Purpose Turns to AshLast year, I built a B2B web portal, which included a shipping-cost algorithm for a client who refused to use off-the-shelf software. "We want something more accurate”, they said. I took it as a challenge.What followed were months of late nights buried in shipping logistics algorithms, academic papers, and a PhD thesis by a naval expert. I became obsessed with how to pack boxes efficiently, how weight and volume interact, and how to squeeze margins from millimeters. I dreamed in cubic centimeters.It worked. The system calculated shipping costs with uncanny precision, often better than manual calculations. I was proud, genuinely, deeply proud. It was one of those rare moments where obsession and skill aligned to create something elegant.Two weeks before launch, they pulled the plug.A quiet email chain. A strategic pivot. A polite "thank you for your work." The solution wasn't the problem; the business direction had changed. I was compensated. Professionally, everything was fine.It hit me like a gut punch.I was not exhausted (I was used to that), but because I'd tied my identity so tightly to the outcome, when it evaporated, I felt li...