I think I had another epiphany just now and I love those moments!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had an interview with a recruiter that reached out to me, which is great timing given that I\u2019ve been laid off last week. The interview went great and I think I\u2019m perfect for the job, but the next step is the coding interview, which is my least favorite part and the one that I struggle with the most. But I left the interview feeling really good about myself, having realized in talking about all of my experience that I actually do know a thing or two about software development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a long time I thought I was unhappy in my career as a software engineer because programming didn\u2019t come \u201cnaturally\u201d to me. Technically heavy subjects were difficult for me in a way that studying languages or history or art never were. I struggled a lot and I thought that was why I was unhappy and felt like I needed to escape. The escape of my dreams was always becoming an artist as my paid profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last several months where my coworkers and I pretty much knew that we would be laid off have resulted in a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do with my working life. I made plans and researched options on how to get paid to do art. But none of those pathways really congealed into anything for me. Then it occurred to me that I could do scientific illustration, especially paleobotanical illustration and I researched that. I bought over $200 in undergraduate level textbooks to learn about botany and paleobotany and then while waiting for those books to arrive, my interest started to wane and I started to worry that I had wasted a lot of money and had once again chased something shiny only to abandon it without really trying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But having realized something about myself, I think I can find the spark for paleobotanical illustration again. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s something I am going to pursue as my sole career, but it\u2019s definitely not something I just want to drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thing I realized about myself is that I like to do hard things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The challenge inherent in throwing myself against the wall of my own limitations and then finally conquering it is immensely satisfying to me. It\u2019s literally the reason I always tell people why I switched my major to computer science in college \u2013 it seemed like the most difficult thing I could find!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thinking even further back, it\u2019s why when I started running I joined the track team in high school and joined the distance running group instead of the sprint group \u2013 it seemed like the harder option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s why I always feel good about myself when I am super patient with the kids (because it means our relationship is good but also because it\u2019s pretty much the hardest thing I have ever had to do). It\u2019s why when I have a good work day it\u2019s always when I\u2019ve been coding. It\u2019s why I gravitated to paleobotany and ecology. These things are really difficult. And in facing the things that are difficult for me to do, I find satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t enjoy art or think that becoming a world famous artist or whatever is easy<\/em>. It\u2019s that it involves skills that I have always considered to come more easily to me. But coding? Math? Natural sciences? Those things have not come as easily to me and it\u2019s why I\u2019ve been persisting as a software engineer despite how bleak the whole thing has been for the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love art. I will always make art. It gets me into flow like nothing else can. And that\u2019s not to say that there aren\u2019t difficult aspects of art. Achieving realism is very difficult. It requires a level of mastery that I admire and that\u2019s why that\u2019s the style of art I gravitate towards. It\u2019s why I need to start drawing more even though painting in color is the thing I want to do. I need<\/em> to challenge myself, to push myself to do the thing I don\u2019t necessarily want to do and come out the other side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think this is why the paleobotanical illustration is still a good fit. In order to be good at it I need to learn a lot about ecology and botany, which are surprisingly math heavy and thus very intimidating for me. But it\u2019s not enough just to like plants of the environment as some idea. I have to study these things. I have to draw with as much accuracy as possible because the point isn\u2019t really self expression, it\u2019s recreating what these plants might have looked like with the best possible information I can glean. And that\u2019s a hard thing to do!<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s why I need to code (or at least do coding projects with AI, though that\u2019s a whole other can of worms I\u2019m not opening right now). It\u2019s why I need to draw in order to render as realistically as possible. It\u2019s why I need to exercise. The harder, more difficult, more challenging, more \u201cagainst my nature\u201d the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been telling myself all this time that I was unhappy because these things didn\u2019t come naturally to me. But in accepting that the thing that gives it meaning is the difficulty will help me. This realization is giving me a whole new understanding of myself. I will seize it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I think I had another epiphany just now and I love those moments! I had an interview with a recruiter that reached out to me, which is great timing given that I\u2019ve been laid off last week. The interview went great and I think I\u2019m perfect for the job, but the next step is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-determination","category-feelings"],"yoast_head":"\n