FA+
Shop
Sometimes I envy people with boring jobs...
18 years ago
General
My line of work usually requires a lot of thought and concentration. You see, I'm a graduate student working towards a PhD in physics at a university. My field is quantum optics, specifically investigating methods of enhanced measurement and other interesting phenomena related to quantum computation. I'm an experimentalist, so when I'm not in the office writing a paper, trying to understand the theory, modelling, or otherwise describing or working out funky quantum mechanics, I'm trying to implement these things in optics, inside a darkened lab, aligning lasers, mirrors, lenses and crystals, setting up counting equipment, and taking measurements.
As you might imagine, this kind of work is pretty mentally occupying. It takes almost total attention to get anything done, so it doesn't afford me a whole lot of time to simply let my mind wander. I'm too preoccupied solving problems. While I'm glad that I'm doing something like this that keeps me so occupied and so fascinated (and financially buoyant - yay scholarship!), I'm also convinced there is a downside.
I've heard in several cases about artists and writers who've gotten their inspiration during long periods of boredom and tedium, and sometimes I wish that, for a brief while, my environment were so conducive to such inspiration. Occasionally I find myself jealous of people with boring tedious jobs, because they are the ones who have such ample time to let their mind wander into the weird and wonderful places that result in beautiful (or, alternatively, hot) artwork and fascinating stories. Maybe this is just a bad stereotype, or perhaps "grass is greener" mentality - I don't know. But I see this in too many places to reject the idea out of hand.
I'd love to be more creative than I am, and I'd like to think that if I could afford so much time to letting my mind go walkabout, then I too could come up with some such complex and involved story. But as it stands now, I'm just not creative enough or I don't have the right environment.
Sometimes I envy people with boring jobs, but then, most of the time, I'm just too preoccupied to think about it.
As you might imagine, this kind of work is pretty mentally occupying. It takes almost total attention to get anything done, so it doesn't afford me a whole lot of time to simply let my mind wander. I'm too preoccupied solving problems. While I'm glad that I'm doing something like this that keeps me so occupied and so fascinated (and financially buoyant - yay scholarship!), I'm also convinced there is a downside.
I've heard in several cases about artists and writers who've gotten their inspiration during long periods of boredom and tedium, and sometimes I wish that, for a brief while, my environment were so conducive to such inspiration. Occasionally I find myself jealous of people with boring tedious jobs, because they are the ones who have such ample time to let their mind wander into the weird and wonderful places that result in beautiful (or, alternatively, hot) artwork and fascinating stories. Maybe this is just a bad stereotype, or perhaps "grass is greener" mentality - I don't know. But I see this in too many places to reject the idea out of hand.
I'd love to be more creative than I am, and I'd like to think that if I could afford so much time to letting my mind go walkabout, then I too could come up with some such complex and involved story. But as it stands now, I'm just not creative enough or I don't have the right environment.
Sometimes I envy people with boring jobs, but then, most of the time, I'm just too preoccupied to think about it.
I guess I was just making a comment on something I see frequently. Boredom is the worst thing in the universe, sure, but sometimes a person will alleviate times of boredom by dreaming something wonderful up, and that's cool.