Sometime not so very long ago, in a city not so very far away, I was being driven home by a friend. (A friend who reads this livejournal) And he managed to make a comment that surprised and intrigued me, I can’t remember it word for word, but it was something to the effect of “I wouldn’t ever want to be as intelligent as you.” This caught my attention for two reasons, the first being that he thought I was smarter than him (I’d never really thought about it, just assigned him to the intellectual peer category without much examination), and the second being why on Earth anyone wouldn’t want to be smarter than they are.
His reasoning? Boredom.
Amusingly enough, an ex who has never met said friend, or even knew about said friend, said, a year later, that boredom was probably the most powerful force in my life.
I pick up things quickly, I admit it. As long as I’m paying attention and I care. Two very important conditions. I need something to seem important to me, and not for some transitive reason, (eg, this job is important to me because I need money; money is important to me because I need food and shelter. Such arguments usually hold little sway over my motivation). And I need to pay attention. And if something isn’t keeping me fully occupied, I will seek out or create something to occupy it. If the new thing does a better job of occupying my mind, you can kiss the first thing goodbye.
Frequently the thing that most thoroughly occupies my brain is being in a funk. No-win situations with attached “imperatives” are very effective at keeping one’s wheels spinning.
The challenges, should I choose to accept it, are to find equally effective but more constructive ways to occupy myself, and to learn to stay on something, after the novelty has worn off. It was partially in that spirit that I chose to come back to pittsburgh. And I think I grew alot in chicago, and I’ve grown since I’ve returned.
Can’t I just go out and have some fun now? =)
Being as smart as someone else is not the same as not wanting to be smarter youself. Huh? Well, I have a few friends that I classify as brainiacs, and quite honestly it can be quite a chore to maintain those friendships. They tend to get real wrapped up in whatever it is that they are learning at the time. They lose their social skills while they do that. I have to make them promise that when they are hanging with me it’s about fun. Now, I’m not infering that I’m a dumb ass by any stretch of the imagination. Over the years I accumulated many skills, primarily in sales and marketing, but also spent a few years in management, but most of my life I was self employed. I did the same thing back then. I was too tied up in what I was doing to give much time to others. I’ve corrected that about 10 years ago and now I enjoy my friends more than anything else in my life. Anyway, I sense your friends comment was more about not wanting to be consumed with aquiring knowledge.
You can’t escape boredom. You can live the most indulgent crazy life imaginable and there will be hours, days and soetimes even weeks where you are bored to death.Once you come to terms with it, there are things than boredom. And like you said there’s always something new and novel too.
escaping boredom
I’m hardly ever bored, there is so much interesting stuff in the world, even sitting still on the Metro or in a park, there is so much to observe. Just the patterns of the morning clouds fascinate me.
So many books I want to read, so many people I want to meet, so many activities I want to try …
The only times I get bored are when I’m at work and my supervisor fails to give me enough assignments to keep me busy … but even then I can go to the library, or meditate, or chat with coworkers, or write in my journal, or call friends on the phone …
So, when I keep myself busy, it isn’t because boredom is a force in my life, it is because there is so much life I want to live. I have trouble understanding people who get bored — I figure they are somehow psychologically blocking themselves from doing interesting things.
Hmmm, kinda funny but I think we had a conversation that ran along these lines sometime back when you were still here. It is an interesting dilemma that while you can grasp many concepts much quicker than the average bear, you also can become bored with same said concepts once mastered at some level. So what is one to do? Perhaps engage in areas that are less predefined and clear cut? Ones where the path is perhaps a bit less clear and where you might be treading into new territory sooner than later? I suspect Engineering/CS stuff wasn’t so interesting after awhile since once you got the basics down – you knew the rest would just be following the cookbook and the mystery was gone. Dunno but maybe it is an idea.
Now why don’t you go out and have some fun!?!
Just following the cookbook, it’s as simple as that??? As an engineer, I’m offended….and I’d think you would be, too, Joel. :)The basics are what’s boring about most fields. Knowing that advanced topics makes everything much more interesting, and the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t understand anything at all. At this point, I only wish things were as simple as a cookbook!
I watched stephen in an engineering context. His main problem was his preference for generalities and broad concepts, rather than grungy details. He’d start a project, work like mad for a few days during the initial excitement of discovery, then he just drop the whole thing as having “no more educational value”. In doing so, Stephen (now to address you directly), you’d miss most of the true educational value in the project, imho. Here I’m defining educational value in terms of future engineering success, which back then wasn’t high on your list of priorities.
I never faulted you for being bored with engineering, though. I myself often dream of a different life—as an English professor or author perhaps, or maybe a male prostitute. 🙂
Who knows, I may be joining you and Aaron in public policy one day. 😉
Ok, bad phraseology with the word “cookbook” in academic contexts. I didn’t mean it didn’t involve challenging concepts or the like (I certainly did my share of going What the fuck?!?) – but the idea of setting out and going into uncharted territory is now much harder in engineering fields nowadays. The new and interesting work is at the far edges – the periphery of engineering academia. (and unfortunately out in the real world much engineering work is just turn the crank, cut and paste design… sigh) Anyway, getting to the really interesting periphery areas takes a significant committment of time and patience for intermediary material that may be far less simulating. (esp if if you are bright and the material isn’t terribly challenging) I know a couple people who gave up on EE largely because the everything seemed too neat, tidy and predetermined. Everything had already been put into a formula and there was nowhere else to go that might be considered ‘new’.
Your observation very well may be on track but I wonder if the lack of discovery isn’t a player in the game too?
…course in my case I bailed on EE after working ‘out in the field’ a year. I discovered that analog design (my love/specialty) was/is on its deathbed out in the commercial world. I am nowhere smart or rich enough to pursue a masters in RF design which is realistically what I would have to do to continue on. So I moved over to the dark side switched to IT… 🙂
Analog design? How interesting! I had no idea you had such a background. I wouldn’t sign the death certificate on analog design just yet, but your comments ring true. Analog design nowadays is a black art practiced by an elite few with either lots of experience or PhDs or both. I studied under Rick Carley at CMU…..he was one of a dying breed. *tear* I also worked for Rob Rutenbar, who started a company called Neolinear. Heard of it? They do analog CAD.
I think your friends bailed on EE too soon. At least if they left thinking that everything was neat and tidy. I worked one summer at IBM designing SRAMs. My boss would hand me a project and say, “Ok, design this circuit with such-and-such tolerances, and btw….every processs parameter might vary by as much as an order of magnitude, so make it a robust design.” If anything, EE has gotten more challenging over the years.
I wish I could chew the fat more about this, but the thesis calls…..maybe I’ll ring you up when i’m in Chicago next (maybe a couple weeks from now).
Make it out there for pride (weekend of the 29th). I’ll be in town that weekend 😉