Travel diary, days 20-26
May. 1st, 2010 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xuenayRandom overheard conversation:
Justin: So who all went to the store?
André: Anyone want Thai tonight?
Justin: Kaj went to the store? No, Kaj's there.
André: Thai, not Kaj. Food from Thailand.
Justin: Food from Kajland?
André: No, Kaj is from Finland. They both end in 'land, but they're very different countries.
First off, apologies to those people who've e-mailed me but to whom I haven't gotten around writing back. (That's at least you, Jarkko, as well as various people I got into conversations with online.) I've been feeling rather drained a lot of the time, for reasons which I'll soon discuss.
Still wondering whether coming here was a good idea or a mistake. Looking at things from a purely utilitarian perspective, I should be satisfied. I'm now "working" with Eliezer three days a week, and each time when I'm there, he gets around 5000 words written on his book. That's very valuable, as his writings reshaped the way I think for the better, and the book could do that for - potentially - millions more. So if I were judging things solely on the basis of how much good I was doing here, I should be happy.
But... meh. I can't help the feeling that pretty much anyone could do what I do there, sitting next to him and watching him write. It's kinda draining, even though I'm mostly free to surf the web or whatever while there. I don't really get that much of a feeling of accomplishment from it anymore. Anna did remark that an ability to do "something that anyone could do" is an accomplishment in itself - that is, the ability to do something even though it isn't great and glorious and exciting. She mentioned, and my own experience agrees, that getting volunteers to do exciting things is easy, but getting them to do the less glamorous work (of which there is much more to do) is much harder. I guess I should consider that as a merit.
Three days a week leaves me two days for other things, weekends excluded. I do finally have in mind a specific working project that I could work on, but I'm not yet sure how much I can get done on that or if I should try to do something else in the first place. Need to still talk about it with Anna. The book days seem to leave me sufficiently drained that I have difficulty getting anything done on the in-between days. But I don't think several book days in a row would be much better, either (neither for me nor Eliezer).
I wonder if I should just treat my time here basically as a vacation: be content with the three days of a week during which I'm actually of some use, and just relax and not be worried about my productivity during the remaining time.
Been feeling wretchedly homesick this whole day. I think I mentioned in some earlier post that I previously thought I couldn't spend extended periods away from Finland, but being here made me change my mind. Well, I recant that now. The people here are nice, but I really miss the people back at home.
Still thinking about what I want to do with my life. For some years, I thought I'd want to do a PhD and go into academia. Well, I still might want to do that, but a few days back I realized how little of that motivation was actually very thought-out. The way the Finnish educational system works, after nine years of elementary school (age 7-15) you pick whether you want to do three years of generic academic high school, or roughly three years of vocational training for some job. If you think you want to get a job that requires a university education, you go to high school. More commonly, many also go to high school because they have no idea of what they want to do with their lives and need time to think.
I went to high school because I needed time to think. To a degree, I also went to university, into a sufficiently multidisciplinary educational program, because I needed time to think. That was the path of least resistance - can't figure out what to do? Continue studying and hope you come up with something good. Large part of my intention to go into academia was probably my brain just being on autopilot - continuing to do what it'd been doing before was the path of least resistance. Especially since a geeky kid could more easily get a feeling of validation from school grades than anything else, so school was automatically endowed with a general halo of approval. Unfortunately, you can't just keep studying forever, for there are no degrees past the PhD. (Yes, one could get multiple degrees of the same level, but by then you couldn't live off study grants anymore and had to figure out a job to support you.) This fact, as well as a general disillusionment with academia that I've been experiencing lately, has been forcing me to evaluate what exactly it is that I'd actually want to do.
For the most part, though, I find that I'm evaluating different career prospects more from the perspective of pain than gain motivation. I'm not as much looking for a career I'd enjoy, but rather a career that would be the least unpleasant. Part of it probably comes from just being here - I'm in contact with too many people obviously much smarter or generally more talented than me, and then I get the feeling that I'm not really good at anything. Yes, I know, this is a fixed mindset biting me. And yes, I also know that this place is drawing people from a very narrow distribution and most people I'll meet in life won't be equally smart and I should realistically expect to do fine. And that there are lots of other things than just smarts that count. And so on.
But... I dunno.
Justin: So who all went to the store?
André: Anyone want Thai tonight?
Justin: Kaj went to the store? No, Kaj's there.
André: Thai, not Kaj. Food from Thailand.
Justin: Food from Kajland?
André: No, Kaj is from Finland. They both end in 'land, but they're very different countries.
First off, apologies to those people who've e-mailed me but to whom I haven't gotten around writing back. (That's at least you, Jarkko, as well as various people I got into conversations with online.) I've been feeling rather drained a lot of the time, for reasons which I'll soon discuss.
Still wondering whether coming here was a good idea or a mistake. Looking at things from a purely utilitarian perspective, I should be satisfied. I'm now "working" with Eliezer three days a week, and each time when I'm there, he gets around 5000 words written on his book. That's very valuable, as his writings reshaped the way I think for the better, and the book could do that for - potentially - millions more. So if I were judging things solely on the basis of how much good I was doing here, I should be happy.
But... meh. I can't help the feeling that pretty much anyone could do what I do there, sitting next to him and watching him write. It's kinda draining, even though I'm mostly free to surf the web or whatever while there. I don't really get that much of a feeling of accomplishment from it anymore. Anna did remark that an ability to do "something that anyone could do" is an accomplishment in itself - that is, the ability to do something even though it isn't great and glorious and exciting. She mentioned, and my own experience agrees, that getting volunteers to do exciting things is easy, but getting them to do the less glamorous work (of which there is much more to do) is much harder. I guess I should consider that as a merit.
Three days a week leaves me two days for other things, weekends excluded. I do finally have in mind a specific working project that I could work on, but I'm not yet sure how much I can get done on that or if I should try to do something else in the first place. Need to still talk about it with Anna. The book days seem to leave me sufficiently drained that I have difficulty getting anything done on the in-between days. But I don't think several book days in a row would be much better, either (neither for me nor Eliezer).
I wonder if I should just treat my time here basically as a vacation: be content with the three days of a week during which I'm actually of some use, and just relax and not be worried about my productivity during the remaining time.
Been feeling wretchedly homesick this whole day. I think I mentioned in some earlier post that I previously thought I couldn't spend extended periods away from Finland, but being here made me change my mind. Well, I recant that now. The people here are nice, but I really miss the people back at home.
Still thinking about what I want to do with my life. For some years, I thought I'd want to do a PhD and go into academia. Well, I still might want to do that, but a few days back I realized how little of that motivation was actually very thought-out. The way the Finnish educational system works, after nine years of elementary school (age 7-15) you pick whether you want to do three years of generic academic high school, or roughly three years of vocational training for some job. If you think you want to get a job that requires a university education, you go to high school. More commonly, many also go to high school because they have no idea of what they want to do with their lives and need time to think.
I went to high school because I needed time to think. To a degree, I also went to university, into a sufficiently multidisciplinary educational program, because I needed time to think. That was the path of least resistance - can't figure out what to do? Continue studying and hope you come up with something good. Large part of my intention to go into academia was probably my brain just being on autopilot - continuing to do what it'd been doing before was the path of least resistance. Especially since a geeky kid could more easily get a feeling of validation from school grades than anything else, so school was automatically endowed with a general halo of approval. Unfortunately, you can't just keep studying forever, for there are no degrees past the PhD. (Yes, one could get multiple degrees of the same level, but by then you couldn't live off study grants anymore and had to figure out a job to support you.) This fact, as well as a general disillusionment with academia that I've been experiencing lately, has been forcing me to evaluate what exactly it is that I'd actually want to do.
For the most part, though, I find that I'm evaluating different career prospects more from the perspective of pain than gain motivation. I'm not as much looking for a career I'd enjoy, but rather a career that would be the least unpleasant. Part of it probably comes from just being here - I'm in contact with too many people obviously much smarter or generally more talented than me, and then I get the feeling that I'm not really good at anything. Yes, I know, this is a fixed mindset biting me. And yes, I also know that this place is drawing people from a very narrow distribution and most people I'll meet in life won't be equally smart and I should realistically expect to do fine. And that there are lots of other things than just smarts that count. And so on.
But... I dunno.
