Finding What Feels Good

I love being out on a golf course. There’s nothing like playing a competitive game with people you enjoy, out in a beautifully manicured bit of nature. When I’m playing, there’s no question this is how I want to spend my time. When I played golf in high school, it was just like the other games I played. I had fun. I also obsessed and could beat all of my friends, but my own natural curiosity, challenge, and fun were the primary motivators.

Sometime during college and in the workforce, I became more focused on the competitive piece and lost the fun part. This cycle shows itself when playing golf. I start the season out on the course, have a ton of fun, and then start practicing. I can focus on practicing more than I actually play. If I’m not careful, I stop playing and then eventually lose motivation altogether. The simple fix: return to the course and play a round with people I enjoy. That refills the bar immediately.

With the right balance, I think I could be a capable golfer. Combining my passion for golf with a little bit of calculated practice would maximize both. That balance is key, though.

Golf has been a great metaphor for my feelings about tech. I’ve been tinkering and building since I was a kid. It’s in my DNA. I love taking things apart and learning about how they work. Even when I used this skill productively, I was driven from within. These feelings still have a voice, but it’s become more challenging as my tech career has grown. It’s been a while since I’ve truly tinkered with programming and just immersed myself in my own curiosity. It’s so hard to not get distracted by “productivity.” I’ve been interested in reinforcement learning for ages, but the golf effect takes over. I start by following that internal drive and next thing I know, I’m deep in math that my logical brain is telling me will be useful.

This seems like a core tension in life. How do you follow a path that brings the most fulfillment? Work typically leans toward financial productivity as it’s difficult to translate these feelings into dollars. I’ve seen this in both self-employed people and those working in large corporations. It seems like a natural force that one must navigate in addition to their own internal force. When this light shines at work, it’s often dampened by bureaucracy and conflicts of interest. It’s rare that I get to genuinely focus and let the creativity flow.

So that’s what I’m focusing on right now. How do I fill that cup up? You must feed your creativity to strengthen it enough to resist the core drive to be productive. Perhaps building and cultivating a space filled with my ideas and experiences will work those muscles and tend the flame. Ultimately, it’s for our own good; it is productive. I know there are things that inspire me about tech, but how do I just dive in without trying to squeeze financial productivity out of it? How do I rekindle that fire for building cool shit?