The entire 'Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman' book is just an incredible read.
Yep, I recommend that and his other book.
What's the other book?
Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
31–40 of 189 posts
Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
#32As a researcher, I’ve felt largely the same way lately. It’s been hard for me to even wrap up a project I was so excited about when I started it that I missed sleep because I was that engaged. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cozy tenure position at a major research institution to ride out the burnout until I feel inspired again. I’m just a lowly postdoc. I’ve thought about leaving the research life for a regular job, b…
burnout = depression
You are right, but the hard part for me is determining the causality here. Am I depressed because I’m burnt out, or am I feeling burnt out because I’m depressed?
Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
#33While this passage is inspiring, it boils down to: 1. Get good at something 2. Get paid for doing it 3. Get burned out by doing it 4. Return to the fun way of doing it 5. ??? 6. Win a Nobel prize or similar How repeatable is that pattern? Is that one of the patterns we want to teach the next generation? Serious question. I don't know the answer. Feynman is obviously rather exceptional. Should we encourage people to f…
Not sure how Nobel prize got on your list.
I read it that way:
- Things become taxing when they stop being fun
- Doing fun things and playing around whatever interests you is the way to make things less taxing
- Sometimes things you play with are also useful to others
Although I am not sure if it is always possible to match what you are getting paid for to what you consider being fun. Feynman gives no answer for this.
Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
#34As a researcher, I’ve felt largely the same way lately. It’s been hard for me to even wrap up a project I was so excited about when I started it that I missed sleep because I was that engaged. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cozy tenure position at a major research institution to ride out the burnout until I feel inspired again. I’m just a lowly postdoc. I’ve thought about leaving the research life for a regular job, b…
I'm in a similar boat. Not a postdoc yet, but will be starting a postdoc in July (assuming I graduate in May, which I'm on track for).
I've always been interested in the intersection of AI and interactive storytelling. Worked in the game industry for a while, then came back for a PhD when ML really started taking off.
With the current frenzied climate in NLP research, I just feel demotivated. Mainly because I think my research outlook is very different from the mainstream, so I feel my work gets undervalued or ignored entirely.
I spent over a year and a half on my last published research project [1], and it's been largely ignored. Despite having strong reviews after rebuttal, the paper was relegated to the Findings of EMNLP, likely because my research was video game related.
I'm usually the kind of person that focuses on things because I care about them, rather than because others do, but the reality is that hiring decisions in academia (or even industry) require that others value your work. If I truly thought I could do research I cared about and get paid a living, without having to worry about whether others accepted it, I think I'd be much more motivated.
My site is a static site hosted on sourcehut, which is having an outage. If it's still down, try https://web.archive.org/web/20240110040908/https://pl.aiwrig...
Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
#35There is a highly relevant and resent research on the state of play, nicely summarised on Huberman Lab Podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwyZIWeBpRw
Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
#36As a researcher, I’ve felt largely the same way lately. It’s been hard for me to even wrap up a project I was so excited about when I started it that I missed sleep because I was that engaged. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cozy tenure position at a major research institution to ride out the burnout until I feel inspired again. I’m just a lowly postdoc. I’ve thought about leaving the research life for a regular job, b…
Academia is a recipe for burnout. It’s like pro sports, unless you are the top 1% of the top 1% you may be able to keep eeking by but will never be in a comfortable position. There is always more to do and you do not get paid well for your time. You are surrounded by people who pour their lives into their work and it will be expected of you. The culture is extremely toxic and dysfunctional.
Your lack of imagination as to another job is part of the trap. Work can be enjoyable, pay well, and you can still have a personal life, but academia sells itself as the only possible trajectory for a certain type of person. Most people leave academia and many of them find meaningful work outside of that.
Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
#37A classic. Any and all administrators tasked with evaluating research-funding proposals should be required to read this short passage before making any funding decisions, so they can be reminded that groundbreaking research is driven mainly by intellectual curiosity, not by metrics that seek to quantify "relevance" or "importance."
Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
#38As a researcher, I’ve felt largely the same way lately. It’s been hard for me to even wrap up a project I was so excited about when I started it that I missed sleep because I was that engaged. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cozy tenure position at a major research institution to ride out the burnout until I feel inspired again. I’m just a lowly postdoc. I’ve thought about leaving the research life for a regular job, b…
Not sure it would help, but it may: adopt a rescue animal, if you're a pet oriented person, and don't already have one, and it may jar your perspectives in multiple dimensions as to what is fun, what is entertaining, what is meaningful. That worked for me when i felt like you describe.
I do love animals, but I’ve always been intimidated about the responsibility of being the person solely in charge of that animal’s life. I’ve always struggled with routines and such (I found out in adulthood I have ADHD).
I have thought about it lately, though. Maybe having that responsibility will cause other things to click into place? However, I’m worried about it not working and impacting a life beyond my own.
Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
#39While this passage is inspiring, it boils down to: 1. Get good at something 2. Get paid for doing it 3. Get burned out by doing it 4. Return to the fun way of doing it 5. ??? 6. Win a Nobel prize or similar How repeatable is that pattern? Is that one of the patterns we want to teach the next generation? Serious question. I don't know the answer. Feynman is obviously rather exceptional. Should we encourage people to f…
Not sure how Nobel prize got on your list. I read it that way: - Things become taxing when they stop being fun - Doing fun things and playing around whatever interests you is the way to make things less taxing - Sometimes things you play with are also useful to others Although I am not sure if it is always possible to match what you are getting paid for to what you consider being fun. Feynman gives no answer for this…
To clarify, the Nobel prize comment is a reference to the last sentence of the passage: "The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate."
Re: Feynman: I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything (1985)
#40As a researcher, I’ve felt largely the same way lately. It’s been hard for me to even wrap up a project I was so excited about when I started it that I missed sleep because I was that engaged. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cozy tenure position at a major research institution to ride out the burnout until I feel inspired again. I’m just a lowly postdoc. I’ve thought about leaving the research life for a regular job, b…
I think this is something… I dunno, it ought to be obvious, but maybe we miss it in the general public? The tenure system is partially there because it is actually good to give smart people the latitude to screw around and play with problems.
And good ideas have the element of play. If academics have to retreat to complexity, nobody will be able to follow…