andrel wrote:
> On 26-10-2009 16:57, Shay wrote:
> 
> For some reason I would still call your uncle productive and therefore 
> you as well.
> 
> I do sort of the same. I have made plaster casts for ceramics. For me 
> the process is the important thing. After the cast is finished I make 
> one or at most a few ceramic things with it. If I do more than one that 
> is because I want to see the effect of a different firing technique.
> After I made them I don't care if somebody else uses them too.
> If I want to make money with it (I don't, still happily working in 
> cardiology and in teaching), I need somebody else to help me.

Money? Turning a lot of time into a little bit of money isn't what I had 
in mind.

I should know more about ceramics. I've seen three generations of my 
family work with them. But, I don't, so I'll have to explain myself 
through my own areas of knowledge and allow you to draw the parallels.

Two of my long-term interests have been POV-Ray and songwriting. POV-Ray 
is a "rewards of doing" interest. I don't usually show my pictures to 
anyone (even my wife) outside of this newsgroup and recognize that the 
subtleties on which I spend so much time are there for the benefit of 
making me happy. I can do difficult things in POV-Ray, but beating WOW 
is probably pretty difficult to and no one is going to care beyond the 
person doing it. Both POV-Ray and WOW are done by people sitting by 
themselves in front of their computers for hours on end and the joy of 
"beating" either is very short-lived.

Songwriting is, however, a "rewards of having done" interest. I don't 
enjoy the act as much, but don't mind saying that I'm very good at it 
and can creative impressive work in a short amount of time. Having done 
this, I can then share the work with musicians as we develop the song to 
completion. Friends /ask/ to hear songs I have written and the 
recordings are as or more exciting to the musicians performing them as 
they are to me.

I'm just extroverted enough to enjoy that recognition, but not 
extroverted enough to be motivated by it, so my experiments with 
"rewards of having done" activities are moving at a very slow pace.

....... Just though of another analogy. People will pay more to read a 
novel than to read a blog. Even if the blog is three times as long.

  -Shay

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