Comment by molochai

Same, thank you.

I have a friend and coworker who is currently struggling with this thing and similar "not making anything" issues from having worked a "maintenance/support" job consisting of little day-to-day make-creation. He took a leave for two months. I really don't think he's coming back.

It is a loss for people he works with and the things he touches. Not to mention a loss for me, because he was the one person I found at my current job with the "make stuff, be useful" attitude. Already people who see that writing on the wall are dropping out.

Sooner or later, me too, if that is in fact the way it goes. The only thing that really keeps me going is that I don't have anything else to turn to, and I do have some cloudy optimism about getting a lot of money and satisfaction in a couple years to help clean up or rework the garbage-deluge.

Your other comment about extroversion makes me think of Gifts Differing (not the best book in the universe, but some good bits especially around intro/extroversion). I just want to hit flow state and smash my head into a problem that costs me sleep and come out on top bloodied but happy and feeling like I've done something. And this is/was a really great career for that.

> This faculty of concentration is likely to characterize the introverts' careers. Whereas extraverts tend to broaden the sphere of their work, to present their products early (and often) to the world, to make themselves known to a wide circle, and to multiply relationships and activities, the introvert takes the opposite approach. Going more deeply into their work, introverts are reluctant to call it finished and publish it, and when they do, they tend to give only their conclusions, without the details of what they did. This impersonal brevity of communication narrows their audience and fame, but saves them from overwhelming external demands and allows them to return to another uninterrupted stretch of work. As Jung is reported to have said, the introverts' activity thereby gains in depth and their labor has lasting value.