This really resonates with my personal experience.
Still, I can hear my inner contrarian asking: to what extent are people happier/more productive if their work follows their curiosity? We're encouraged to get in touch with your true curiosity/interest, free ourselves from expectations, etc. Personally, I've found the greatest satisfaction, peace, and even freedom when I work on things that are useful to my friends (let's include authority figures in this framing for the sake of argument). Typically, these aren't things I particularly care about. It turns out I want to help my friends, get praise from them, and maybe learn new things along the way.
Without getting too far into evolutionary psychology reductionism, this seems... kind of reasonable? I don't necessarily think I have excessive curiosity towards any particular thing. I can empathize with people who, assuming they had a relatively stable/privileged upbringing, don't have an inner voice telling them what to work on -- maybe that's asking more than is reasonable?
> Ambition is still an admirable trait to have because, among other things, it demonstrates that you have curiosity and a love for life.
Thanks for a very beautiful response in general. I particularly liked this formulation. Ambition is not the (proper) end; curiosity and a love for life are ends in and of themselves. My personal experience -- I wonder if others feel the same -- is that working on a "big problem" or "something" great is far too abstract a motivation.
Still, I can hear my inner contrarian asking: to what extent are people happier/more productive if their work follows their curiosity? We're encouraged to get in touch with your true curiosity/interest, free ourselves from expectations, etc. Personally, I've found the greatest satisfaction, peace, and even freedom when I work on things that are useful to my friends (let's include authority figures in this framing for the sake of argument). Typically, these aren't things I particularly care about. It turns out I want to help my friends, get praise from them, and maybe learn new things along the way.
Without getting too far into evolutionary psychology reductionism, this seems... kind of reasonable? I don't necessarily think I have excessive curiosity towards any particular thing. I can empathize with people who, assuming they had a relatively stable/privileged upbringing, don't have an inner voice telling them what to work on -- maybe that's asking more than is reasonable?