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This isn't really an answer to your query... but reading this (and recalling a recent cast you made about reverse engineering a shelving unit as your "happy place") brought to mind something that might be worth reading/pondering in this context. Don't know if it'll get you unstuck, but I've found it helpful.
Here are some quotes I like, but the piece is worth reading in full.
"The reason nothing has felt interesting to me, I thought, is that I’ve forgotten the most important thing for me: the path of maximal interestingness is supposed to feel like *fun*. Not fun as in “I feel entertained” but fun as in, “this is engrossing and self-surprising, life-affirming and a little scary.” [...]
"Over the last six months, as I’ve been looking for things that will interest me, I’ve done it coldly. I’ve kept a list of things that makes me say, “Hm. That’s interesting.” That is, I’ve looked for things that match the pattern of how an Interesting Idea is supposed to look. But I’ve forgotten to ask myself what *feels* interesting, as in, “I can’t explain why, but this car with seventeen headlights is just really fascinating to me.” [...]
"The more general point, then, is: interestingness, the compulsion to know, is not a property of an idea; it is a cluster of emotions. You can’t go looking for interesting ideas, not directly. You have to look for that thing that surges up in you—surges like rage, like laughter, like sadness—when you encounter clues."
https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/funny-curiosity 1 reply
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Great essay. Thank you!
This is amazing:
> Our three-year-old, Rebecka, is drawing “a map of our island.” She picks up a pencil—the one closest at hand—and just gets a line going. Her attitude, fiercely concentrated, is boundlessly confident, like, “Of course, this is where the line should be, no doubt about it.” She twists the line all over the page with her face frowning. Then, just as abruptly, she lifts the pencil and is done.
> In a year or two, she will become self-aware. Her drawings will start to look like childhood kitsch (standardized stick figures, square houses with triangular roofs) and they will stay boring for years, until, as Heinrich von Kleist said, 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒘𝒂𝒍𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓; until she has regained, as an adult, the serious play she has now. 1 reply
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