As someone who has just left academia (law prof), this post really resonates. I found that academia sucked me dry and that I did not have the bandwidth (mental, physical, emotional) to think and communicate as I wished about my interests. Am hoping to cobble together income somehow, as I don't have the 'someone else funding my life and my children's lives' option. Will be interested to see what you figure out!
In my own (well-paying) career, I did not find any sort of synergy developing between my line of work and my interests outside it. This meant that there were no overlaps (apart from drafting emails) where I could play these two spheres of activity against each other.
But paradoxically, having a demanding career made it easier in some ways pursue what I wanted, i.e. to write, because my mind-bowl would be empty after a day's work, ready to be filled by things I was excited by.
Today, in contrast, I am "doing what I love" full-time, but the quality of attention and excitement has degraded. With the erosion of the work-passion compartmentalization, everything seems to meld into an inchoate "things to be done" list: writing an article, getting a haircut, going for a jog, fixing the leak, meeting friends, everything becomes a set of interchangeable tasks-to-do.
As someone who has just left academia (law prof), this post really resonates. I found that academia sucked me dry and that I did not have the bandwidth (mental, physical, emotional) to think and communicate as I wished about my interests. Am hoping to cobble together income somehow, as I don't have the 'someone else funding my life and my children's lives' option. Will be interested to see what you figure out!
So good!
In my own (well-paying) career, I did not find any sort of synergy developing between my line of work and my interests outside it. This meant that there were no overlaps (apart from drafting emails) where I could play these two spheres of activity against each other.
But paradoxically, having a demanding career made it easier in some ways pursue what I wanted, i.e. to write, because my mind-bowl would be empty after a day's work, ready to be filled by things I was excited by.
Today, in contrast, I am "doing what I love" full-time, but the quality of attention and excitement has degraded. With the erosion of the work-passion compartmentalization, everything seems to meld into an inchoate "things to be done" list: writing an article, getting a haircut, going for a jog, fixing the leak, meeting friends, everything becomes a set of interchangeable tasks-to-do.