It’s a nice idea, but the reality is that this never occurs. While we may enjoy an activity and say we love it more than any other, the love for it is not constant. Instead, it’s like a wave, with crests and troughs that occur at various times. However, unlike a wave it is more random. At times, the love for an activity may be at a maximum and stay there for weeks. During other stretches of time, motivation may be at a minimum, to the point that others would quit.

We’ve all been in this situation: we have an idea in our mind, and we just can’t seem to get the person in front of us to understand it. There’s a sort of divide between you and the other person. On the one hand, you can clearly picture what you’re thinking about. Furthermore, what you’re saying makes perfect sense to you, but the other person can’t follow at all. This causes frustration on your part. On the other hand, the person you’re speaking to might be wondering whether they just aren’t good enough to understand (or, more cynically, they think you’ve given a horrible explanation).

At first, no one gets visitors. We all work in obscurity, steadily running experiments and collecting data, trying to figure out what we should do. At this stage, we are free to run any experiment. When it’s only us and our backyard tools, we can try whatever we like.

When everyone else has moved on to something new, who’s still left? Are you one of those people, still working on that same craft, honing your skills? Or did you move on with the rest of them, eager to try the new and next best thing?