One Thought

Where I am

I recently left my job. Or, more accurately, I am on a leave-of-absence from which I may not return. This is Monday, the first day of my leave. Why did I leave? Two main reasons:

1. I have grown less interested in what I was doing at the job and much more interested in pursuits far outside its scope.
2. I feel ambitious, and the job wasn’t satisfying that ambition. Money is at this point a bland and uninteresting ambition. I want to create things that are mine. I want to put them out into the world and meet like-minded people. (And a little fame wouldn’t hurt, either.)

So here I am, on leave. Nothing to do except exactly what I want. I am responsible for every hour of my day. I just need to use the time wisely.

What I want to do

I have two interests, very generally stated. The first is creative expression.

I want to create things that are mine–that are some combination of who I am and what I am feeling. Right now, music is my main outlet. However, I never got the opportunity to develop myself much as a musician. Sure, I’ve practiced guitar for 8 years, but my practice was usually unfocused. And when it was focused, it tended to be on technique rather than on, say, composition.

I want to produce music that is an expression of myself. I want to connect the emotional part of my brain to the musical part of my brain to the mechanical part of my brain. I’ve worked on the mechanics; now I need to create the connections necessary to produce heartfelt music.

And I need a ton of uninterrupted time to do it. I started playing guitar in college and have always had to squeeze music into the cracks of my life. It takes more time and focus to bootstrap the musical process.

What’s the overall goal? I want to create works that I think are amazing and that other people–at least some of them–also appreciate. I would love to release music and to be contacted by people I don’t know who like it. Putting my stuff out there will, I hope, help me to find and attract like-minded people.

I am also interested in ideas. Clearly I need to elaborate. I like to exercise the rational part of my mind. I like to discover generalizations–to combine a bunch of specific ideas into a general one. I like to merge ideas from disparate fields. I want to understand how I ended up here and how my mind works. I’m interested in the history of the universe, earth, and human civilization. I want to understand how the world works: how its systems are intertwined, and what causes produce what effects. I am interested in economics, political theory, psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and physics. And I’m sure my interests will further broaden as I learn more.

Clearly I will be reading a lot. I also find writing to be very effective. When I write, I think more clearly; I see the holes in my logic and the gaps in my understanding. I work out my ideas concretely. And, of course, writing is the most effective way to disseminate new ideas. I hope to contribute to the body of human knowledge.

What I want to avoid

So I want to develop as a musician and pursue ideas through reading and writing.  Given how much I want to accomplish, I need to make sure that I am consistently productive. I don’t want the weeks and months to pass without much to show for them. The sooner I produce things–music, writings–and get them out there, the sooner I get feedback. Feedback will, I think, be instrumental in determining how to proceed. I don’t live on Mars–the point of this is to impact people.

I want to avoid wasting time. I want to get things done consistently. I want to produce rather than merely to think. A year from now, I want a body of work that I am proud of.

Am I approaching this too intensely? I am an ambitious person, and I have ambitious goals. Ambition demands some level of intensity. Of course, I want to be happy and have fun. I like to relax, and I understand the pitfalls of workaholism. But I am ambitious. I will be unhappy if I ignore my ambition and opt for a more comfortable and conservative lifestyle. Thus I see some intensity as necessary. They key is balance, and I try to be as intense as necessary. The goal is to be happy and fulfilled, not to drive myself into the ground pursuing some abstract goal.

My plan

For the indefinite future, I will be working full-time toward developing my interests. I want to get something interesting–and preferably multiple somethings–done every day that I am working. Thus some sort of schedule–and the self-discipline to follow it–is necessary.

So what’s the schedule? I have decided to divide my time between music, writing, and reading. At least for now, I will be doing all three every day, five days a week. The following are the constraints I considered when forming my schedule:

1. I want to prioritize music, since creative expression is most important to me right now. That means that music comes first and that I spend the most time on it.
2. I want to prioritize creative activities. That means they come first and that I spend the most time on them.
3. Because it takes a little while for my brain to warm up to each activity, I want to minimize “context switches” between different activities.
4. I want to spend a substantial portion of the day outside the house; otherwise I’ll go crazy.
5. I want to get a lot done, but I don’t want to work all day; otherwise I’ll go crazy.

I came up with the following plan. Each day I’ll spend 4 hours on music, 3 hours writing, and 2 hours reading. I’ll stay home in the morning for music and leave in the afternoon for writing and reading. Cafes, parks, and the library are all good places to go. Within the music and writing blocks, I’ll do the most creative stuff first. I’ll spare you the details of how I plan to subdivide the time allocated to each activity. This plan is a work in progress, and I’m sure I’ll be tweaking things and dropping the stuff that doesn’t work.

Why have this much organization? First, I want to guarantee that I am spending my time productively. Even if it’s hard to focus on the most important things all the time, at least I’m working toward my goals consistently. And a schedule eliminates the need to motivate myself every day. With a schedule, I don’t need to psych myself up or wonder whether I have it in me to be creative; I just get to work, because that’s the schedule. In fact, I’ve often found that even when I think I don’t have it in me, I do–it’s only getting started that’s difficult.

The first day has gone well. I am writing this during the “writing” time. There have been some frustrations, but that is to be expected when getting started.  I expect to find a rhythm with time.