Experiments in Life Because Sometimes Science Screws Up!

Learning versus Doing

I like to learn. At any given time, I am generally juggling 3–4 books at once. Most of those 3–4 books are typically non-fiction of some form or another. A lot of those non-fiction books are computer science related, but not all of them. A quick glance at last year's reading list shows books on writing, management, a couple of biographies, networking and presenting, personal finance, and small business. This year's reading list is shaping up much the same. What these lists do not show are all of the books on my to-read pile. I have math books (mainly modern algebra and category theory), biology books (well, mostly things by Richard Dawkins, although The Origin of Species is on there as well), and several histories and biographies (mostly U.S. history and presidents). I like to learn a little bit about a large variety of topics.

My interests are not focused at all. While I am obsessed with computer science and engineering, I have never been able to focus. I flit from topic to topic; one day I am intensely studying the Cray-1, a super-computer from the late 70's, with every intention of writing an emulator for the architecture (yes, just for fun). The next day, I am just as likely to be reading about Database Systems or Programming Languages. While diving in to a topic, I can come up with several interesting projects that would teach me more about my current obsession; however, I never get around to implementing any of them because the next day, my attention is diverted elsewhere.

Case in point: I spent a great deal of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas of last year reading about Ruby on Rails. I had some ideas for a web application that I wanted to write — a project and task tracking application to replace a crufty spreadsheet that I wrote and maintain at work. So, I read a lot, worked on a couple of sample applications in Rails, and have not gotten back to actually working on my project. Well, that is not entirely true. While I have not been actively writing code for the applications, I have been giving it lots of thought and trying to work out what would be the best way to approach it. For all the thought I have put in to it, though, I am still not doing it. Granted, I am doing a lot of other things. I spend a fair amount of time reading, running a Dungeons and Dragons game, watching a bit of TV, just not working on the project that I thought was important to me.

When I finished The Creative Habit a couple of weeks ago, a few keys really struck a chord with me. One, I should get over thinking that I am not creative. I always thought that being an analytical engineer really shut down that right side of my brain. To a certain extent, it does. When I am trying to solve a problem at work, I have had to train myself to ignore the leaping, scattered, right-brained thoughts and go down my checklist to figure out the cause of the problem. Usually, the solution is fairly obvious and requires no creativity. Every so often, though, I have to step perpendicular to the problem and look at it from another angle. That is the creative side coming out. So, I can do — I can be creative — whether I see it or not. Two, sometimes I just have to step off of the cliff. As an engineer, I spend a lot of time gathering data. Gathering data fits my personality well; I like to learn. Sometimes, I just need to stop gathering data, take a leap of faith, and jump into the project that I want to work on, trusting that I will figure things out as I go. My personality wants me to wait until I am sure that I will succeed before I start anything. Sometimes you just have to take a chance.