This sounds great in theory, but:
The idea of “choosing your boss” isn’t a luxury a lot of people have. The job market in many areas and sectors is absolutely horrendous right now.
I always assumed “follow your passion” had a level of implied common sense that if your passion is building ships in bottles or mid-12th century Chinese calligraphy - maybe keep that as a hobby. Same deal if you’re 35 years old and decide you just love interpretive dance, even though you know you have only modest talent for it.
“Find something you more or less like to do and gives you a reasonable amount of job satisfaction but also pays the bills. But if you think you have legitimate talent at something that could conceivably blow up into fame and stardom, and you can pursue it without starving to death, then sure - go for it.” - just doesn’t have the same catchy ring to it as “follow your passion”.
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I could think of nothing worse than fame and stardom.
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Well if you decide to try to make it as an actor instead of go to school for electrical engineering - even you just really love acting - fame is the logical end goal, right? I’m not saying pursue fame for its own sake.
Also you can always be a “hammer and nails” actor who makes a decent living w/o ever being famous. But seems weird to have that as your goal from the beginning.
The new Pixar movie “Soul” deals with your “purpose” passion or spark or whatever, made me think of the Job discussion above. I would recommend watching it, although it’s pretty heavy for kids imo
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The episode of STNG that was just on H&I was also about following your passion vs playing it safe. In it, Jean-Luc Picard concludes that it’s better to follow your passion even if it inevitably leads to getting stabbed through the heart by a Nausicaan.
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I have a job I’m definitely not passionate about, but it really helps me to view it transactionally and not expect any kind of lasting fulfillment from work. I get satisfaction from doing my job well, and it gives me self esteem to be recognized as being good at it, but ultimately I view employment as a game where I try to get the most free time and money possible with the least amount of stress and hassle.
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There used to be, but in the past 10 to 20 years big companies adopted full press bullshit propaganda campaigns about how their “mission” was no longer to serve clients and make money but to “improve the lives of families in our communities” and euphemisms like that. There is a potent mythology going on among the professional classes that companies are filled with people living their passions and that’s why they’re so successful. Its a complete coincidence of course that if they convince you that you should act like your job is your passion then naturally you will work more for less money. After all, its your passion.
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I watched that episode pretty recently, it’s a damn good one but it really showcases the implicit racial essentialism of the showrunners. Like, I would for sure be a racist if I lived in Star Trek. I wouldn’t want my kids playing with the Klingons, I wouldn’t want to do business with a Ferengi.
It was even kind of weird how the episode ends, this sort of bonding moment between Riker and Picard, but it’s Picard regaling Riker with stories about other run-ins with intransigent Nausicans(sp?). Like is that just a sore point with Picard, are people often rolling their eyes like Oh God, he’s kicking off about the Nausicans again…
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Every episode makes me cringe at one thing or another. I haven’t seen any of the current series. Maybe they’re better in those respects.
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I spent a long time without a passion for anything.
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I didn’t watch all of the next generation and almost none of deep space 9 or the others, so, I dunno, but, are the Ferengi supposed to be Jews?
lol giving money to Harvard or any other school with a mega endowment
Late to the conversation but I’m about 15 years post PhD and I’m still not sure if it was a good decision.
At least it wasn’t financially burdensome - free tuition and about a $22k stipend to live on.
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It’s almost impossible to escape the conclusion that they are basically Space Jews, yes. From my understanding of their (production) history, they were initially meant to just be hyper-capitalists, embodying greed and materialism. Decide for yourself, I suppose:
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Star Wars is the problem here. Seriously
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Actually, the Bajorans were the Space Jews.
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Well that’s a new one on me.
And if that’s not your cup of tea, there’s always
Spoiler alert, he does fall on his ass when he tries to do the Triple Axis
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