Exactly like all software developers who thought they were going to make games or some world changing application at least in their own time, and then five years later they are just logging out for the day and playing games or streaming crap all evening like everyone else.
Given how many great open source projects there are, some developers actually do that. Just not me and you bro.
A lot of FOSS is maintained by people who are getting paid one way or another to maintain it.
I’m so sick of computers I don’t even play videogames anymore. I just write stories in notebooks and go for long walks
I tried making games a while back and I’ve no idea how people do it. It was rough trying to enjoy your own game after you’ve spent 1000 hours play testing every aspect of it. Half way though the game Id stop thinking my own game was fun. I don’t think I can ever be a game dev.
Playtesting? What’s that? Seems like an old practice that only slowed down release schedules
If you do something you love as a career, you’ll never work a day in your life have one less thing that you love.
“When your vacation becomes your vocation, you will never have a vacation again.”
It’s not that you dislike doing it because you get money for it
You dislike it because you do it all day and don’t have any veriety in it. When it’s a hobby can can take a break from it at any time and do something else in the meantime
I’m sure this is a part of it, but this is also a phenomon that’s been studied in psychology called the “overjustification effect.” Basically, once you introduce external rewards to something that was previously done for internal satisfaction, people become motivated only by the external reward and will lose interest without it. The external motivation can also “crowd out” your internal motivation and diminish it completely.
That doesn’t really apply to me since my internal motivation dies out pretty quickly and if I force myself to keep going I only get worse and worse results and start hating the things I love.
I don’t really get a lot of internal satisfaction or at least not enough that keeps me doing something. If I notice I start losing motivation, it’s better for me to stop and pick it up again when I feel motivated again (which can take months or years).
I enjoy the process of learning something new.
Same applies to basically anything.
Driving is awesome, but when you are driving because you are commuting, or you have to drive your kids to kindergarten/school it becomes a chore and you no longer enjoy it.
I love programming. But when I have to do it for someone else to earn a living, and do it in a specific manner that they dictate, it feels like a chore and I no longer enjoy it.
Having a workplace that is fun and enjoyable isn’t about doing the thing you love. It’s about a lot of other things, such as the people you work with, the company culture, how much freedom and choice you are granted.
do it in a specific manner that they dictate
That’s the root of the whole thing.
Obviously, if someone is going to pay you to do something for them, they’re going to want you to do it their way, in the manner of their choosing. That’s kinda the point.
The conclusion, of course, is that what you are really enjoying is the freedom to do what you want…and what you want just happens to be this given activity. Once you’re doing it for pay, you’re trading that freedom for money (capitalism in a nutshell, trading freedom for money). All the trappings of the specific nature of that trade are just window dressing and detail.
This applies to literally anything anyone does as a profession, all throughout history, even/especially “the oldest profession”.
Yep, it’s like playing a game that you like while having someone watch over you saying, “no don’t do that, no that isn’t good enough, you are taking too long, redo it all by this deadline”, and the ever present threat their assessment of your playing will have on your ability to live your daily life.
Pretty much.
In the actual nature of my work, I love it. I’m a CAD drafter and 3D modeler. I got started on this path as a little kid when I loved to draw and design Star Wars ships, especially floorplans and schematics of them.
If I could do that all day, it’d be heaven. Instead it’s always far less interesting things, on tight deadlines, with shitty software, and it has to be done in the least efficient ways possible, and I’m given vague and conflicting instructions on what is even wanted.
But it pays better than the Star Wars ships, and I like having food and a car and beer.
A guy I work with now flies drones commercially now, he says he cannot wait to stop flying drones for the rest of his life
