Occupational reconsideration. Or: Shoe shopping

More often than not I find bloggable moments happening in the insomniac quietude of 3am.

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Here's how it goes.
I get into a thing.
Waiting tables.
Photography.
Building bikes.
I do the thing for a while.
I start to think about what it would be like to do this thing forever.
I try to envision all the good parts, the bad parts, the dull moments in between those parts.
I try it on like I'm trying on a pair of shoes.
I walk around in it for a while.

And then something happens.
The shoes aren't quite right.
The fit isn't there.
The color doesn't work with my wardrobe.
So I take off the shoes, put them back in the box, and look for the next pair.

Right now I'm unlacing a pair that I thought was gonna work.
It's sad.
But I relish the process, as all-consuming and pitfall-fraught as it is.
I get better at it every go-round.

It's harder every time though.
Every time I think: No, I finally got it right this time.
But I'm always wrong about that.

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I see myself prototyping. It has its own subtle art. It's in demand, it's interdisciplinary, it's challenging, it means using a lot of the stuff I know a little too much about.

Great blurb from Diego Rodriguez about prototyping (more here):

As you make a prototype, assume you are right and everyone else is wrong.
When you share your prototype, assume you are wrong and everyone else is right.

What I've been doing, what I am doing, is prototyping a career for myself. And prototyping is a long, complicated, expensive, failure-ridden process.