A Flood of Ideas
23 May 2017
As of late I have been seeing the early effects of burnout. This has especially been compounded by the fact that I was in my final semester to complete my Bachelor’s in Computer Science, with enormous workloads piling on top of me. I almost caved in to senioritis, not caring anymore because I’ll still graduate; but I persevered and completed my four years of hard work with a massive bang. But the effects still held on me even three weeks into the blissful summer. Despite my attempts to exercise and maintain a healthy diet, I kept feeling lethargic and depleted. In the mornings I would be reinvigorated, but the energy was siphoned out of me and I lost all motivation by the time the afternoon rolled around.
Today and yesterday have been a revelation to me. I have been working on a single project for far too long. Just yesterday I took some time to explore OpenAI and some Neural Network research, and my energy sprung back from death to life. It’s as if I have been bitten by the bug of electrification, and its powers have engulfed me. Now I understand how I managed to keep up endurance for so long without seeing any of the effects of burnout prior (so much so, that I took 21 credit semesters in my Sophomore year!).
Exploration into new intriguing topics is what lights me up and gives me the drive to learn more and build artifacts resulting from that knowledge. I cannot be a drone that works on one and only one interesting topic, or a couch potato that sits around (it’s only made me feel worse). I must discover new topics of old constantly, for they give me the amazement and wonder of a child lost in Disney World for the first time. After all, variety is the spice of life.