Ramble of a Multifaceted "Engineer"

Everything I do involves some level of creativity, but writing music, writing a book, that’s a different kind of dedication to a craft, and honestly I miss it. What a luxury to have had the time to write creatively for the sake of writing and telling a story, to create music and see if I could play it. I’m not sure when I’ll next get to get back to those things (and sometimes I imagine myself hospitalized for some reason before finally letting myself get back to it), but I hope I make time for it. Writing books and short stories and music and practicing cello with my chickens in the backyard. But when it comes to fulfillment, I think i need more than that. I can’t be satisfied and only live that life while I know people are struggling, our planet is warming, pollution runs rampant and poisons our food, air, and water.

I also can’t imagine a job for me anymore. If I’m not helping, I don’t want it. If my purpose in the company is just to increase shareholder value, market something people don’t actually need, create more content for people to be sucked in by and add just one minute to their screentime, I don’t want it. I don’t want to contribute to social media and be part of the attention economy. But still I wonder at what sacrifice I must make in order to have that backyard and those chickens, and the time to write and create. Do I need to gain some corporate skills to be useful to a nonprofit? Do I need to get a corporate or ai startup job to have enough money to do what I actually want to do? Will I ever abandon my projects to do this creative route? I don’t think I can.

As a multifaceted person, I am constantly torn between the practical and the purely creative. I want to solve real world problems. Helping people, in the present and in the future, drives me. I know that’s what I want to do. And yet, the pull of the creative. Create to create. Not to solve a problem, just to add to the collective creativity of humanity. Can I do it? Should I do it? Do I have a moral obligation to do the most helpful thing?

I look at Greta Thunberg, a young woman who feels everything I feel about the state of the world, except she gets loud about it. Goes and does something about it. While I sit and study, telling myself I’ll be more useful to the cause with a degree, with a respectable job, with engineering and policy knowledge that will help me actively make a difference to go alongside my demands. I think I’m doing the right thing, but still I get sucked into the job stuff. How do I get into a competitive company? What skills can I learn to make the most money? What projects should I do to get the most new skills and prove that I’m capable?

How do I make it both? How do I help and get better in the future? How do I both prepare myself to make an impact, and make an impact now? Should I even factor in my wish for the purely creative? Can’t I be satisfied without it?