Explore, discover, and share

I've been having a tremendous amount of fun writing album reviews. When I gave myself this challenge, I thought it would get to be a little bit of a drag after the novelty had worn off. Diminishing enthusiasm was actually the point of the endeavor. I wanted to force myself to stick with something that wouldn't be my first choice for a leisure time activity. It was supposed to be training for writing a research proposal and teaching philosophy.

I'm 11 reviews in and feel like I'm just warming up. There are no signs of waning enthusiasm (I expected to be bored with the process after the first 5 reviews). I only just realized why I'm having so much fun reviewing these albums. The music has been really tremendous, I've discovered some really good artists that I never would have even thought about checking out before starting this process, but what I've learned about how I like to work has been the really eye-opening discovery.

Writing a research paper or a development report or even these blog posts require me to mold my thinking to conform to the conventions and expectations of the medium. Science papers must be written in a particular vernacular to be taken seriously. Documents that I prepare for work are similarly restrictive. I resist writing informal blog posts (kind of like this one) for the simple fact that it's harder to write from a third person perspective than to simply jot down whatever I may be thinking at the moment. These album reviews basically have no restrictions. Other than my self-imposed rule to not say a particular band sounds like some other band, there are limits on the images that I can use to describe the listening experience of a particular album.

I can write whatever the hell comes to mind, in whatever form I think will work best, using whatever language I find most fitting to the situation. This freedom to work as I choose is intoxicating. The practical part of my mind thinks its crazy to spend my time writing these album reviews rather than working on something with more potential to further my stated career objectives. These concerns are easy to disregard. I don't want the career my practical nature thinks I should be pursuing. Why should I aggressively pursue promotion to a more senior role for the simple reason that's what you're supposed to do when you get hired by a big company. I really have no interest in joining the management ranks of my building. There are too many expectations of what needs to be done and in what matter it needs to be done. I want a career where I get to work on the problems that I find interesting using the approach that I have determined will work best.

I want the freedom to explore, discover, and share what I learn. That's how I want to spend my time. That's my ideal job description.