Stream(ing) of Consciousness: JD Flynn's Journey from Paramedic Burnout to Twitch Coding Therapy

What do you do when you've seen TOO MANY people on their worst day? You find a career where the worst day involves merge conflicts. JD Flynn's journey from paramedic burnout to Drupal powerhouse is the career pivot we didn't know we needed.

In this episode:

• The EXACT moment he realized "maybe I shouldn't be a paramedic anymore" (spoiler: it involves losing empathy for humans, which is generally considered a job requirement)
• How streaming on Twitch literally kept him from "circling the drain" during unemployment (turns out talking to yourself CAN make you a better developer)
• That time he contributed a Star Wars reference to Drupal core that's STILL THERE (search "may the force be with you" and feel the power of the open source)
• The shocking truth that he can play basically EVERY INSTRUMENT EVER (but travels with none of them, which seems like a missed opportunity)
• His pitch-perfect defense of not learning every new JavaScript framework (because 15 were deprecated while you read this sentence)

Featured Projects & Links:

• Find JD:
  • Twitch: JDdoesDev (3-5 nights a week!)
  • Bluesky: @JDdoesDev
  • Drupal core: That one Star Wars reference
  • HeroDevs: Where he currently helps your ancient PHP not implode

Key Quote: "It's okay to not be okay." - JD Flynn, giving us the permission slip we didn't know we needed

Fun Fact: Our guest correctly answered EVERY QUESTION about dance history despite having zero background in dance. (We're not saying he cheated, but we're not NOT saying it either.)

Mental Health Resources:

• OSMI (Open Sourcing Mental Illness)
• Put your own oxygen mask on first
• Finding creative outlets (like playing every wind instrument ever created)

Hosted by Hayden Baillio and Wendy Hurst
Brought to you by HeroDevs - Because someone has to keep your end-of-life software from becoming end-of-world software.

(Next time you're feeling burned out, remember: streaming yourself coding weird game projects while talking to internet strangers might just save your mental health. It's like therapy with more bugs!)