In trying to update Eli on how things are going I became surprisingly upset. Not at Eli, definitely not, but at the dilemma I feel.

I am very much inclined to not state these things plainly and hide their meaning behind metaphors and generalities. A worse form of censorship I do not know and I did call this thing "Thoughts Uncensored". This inclination arrives from finding the whole situation humiliating overall. However, I have experienced in the past the unparalleled liberation that can only be achieved by humiliation. Without further ado

I've already identified motivation as a key issue of mine. I have always been encouraged to pursue my passions and passions are basically the sure-fire method of attaining motivation. On top of this I have a most fortunate (very, very fortunate) life in which I effectively have zero obligations or commitments to anyone other than myself. I have that most rare privilege of actually being able to do whatever I want. What then could possibly be stopping me from going out and achieving amazing things in my area of interest.

This has been a slow realization. To become an expert, an artisan, a master at anything one either must have extreme natural talent or extreme devotion. I've always been about the devotion path, I am rather obsessive by nature. I was devoting myself more and more to learning everything that I could about computers with the eventual goal of being able to make something truly amazing. But I realized that as I obsessed and gained ground along that path I was simultaneously contributing to my abject loneliness.

As you delve deeper into specialization, you are also changing your social space (read limiting your romantic possibilities). The usual cure for this phenomenon is that specialists date within their specialization so that they don't need to worry about being able to relate to people who do not share their vocabulary, microculture, worldview, interests. Woe to the engineer, to the computer scientist, to the mathematician who is specializing further and further into an area where women are rarer than vegan butchers.

Certainly it is not absolute that becoming specialized makes the specialist handicapped in mixed specialization company. But with me this is the case.

So I am experiencing two contradictory forces. One force compels me to dabble in everything, broaden my experience, relate with everyone and everything on a fleeting but electric level (this is the practice of folks know as "interesting people"). The other force compels me to put on the blinders and dig as deep as I can into what I love in pursuit of excellence.

The unfortunate result of these forces is a net stasis, a stasis I have been in for 6 months now. Progress being made in neither direction and frustration mounting.