I feel like most of my creative problem solving happens when I'm not working on the problem. There seems to be, roughly speaking, a three part process:
* A loading phase where I immerse into the problem. This requires silence and concentration. Basically staring at the problem and its various aspects for a few hours. Hmm. What if? No. But maybe. Nope. Hmm. Hmm. The problem will often seem too big to fit in my head. I can sort of fumble and grasp its outline, but I don't see it clearly.
* A background processing phase, this requires a sense of almost boredom. I need to step away from the keyboard. A disengagement from further input, from intellectual stimuli in general. I can't distract myself with entertainment either. I must be a bit bored.
* All the sudden there will be clarity, deep insight into what needs to be created. Like the microwave going bing, signalling the cooking is ready. I'll solve not only one problem, but half a dozen. The solutions come faster than I can implement them. I need to pace myself and write my ideas down before I implement them.
I reject the notion that anyone hearing or reading a word from this list could possibly experience anything properly categorized as "harm".
This is what's known in the sports world as "flopping" - feigning an injury to elicit a penalty on the other team.
Except academia has taken it even further. You don't even need to pretend that you're the one injured. You can make up an imaginary person and pretend they are injured, i.e. "maybe somone will hear the word tarball and think of tarbaby and then they'll feel bad" despite the fact that this has never once happened in recorded history.
This way you can search for infractions and more expeditiously accuse and eject your rivals (people whose work is better than yours).
My favorite way to handle these types of situations is to contact any lawyer you trust and ask them to recommend someone. They will not only know the correct discipline for your particular scenario, but being in the industry, they’re a better judge of quality than just picking someone randomly out of a search engine.
The first time I needed a lawyer to review business paperwork, I called a local personal injury lawyer who I knew had a good reputation, and they gave me a reference to someone who barely had any marketing presence at all, but was an excellent lawyer. 10/10 would do again.
The "purpose" question is easier when someone is trying to kill you - your purpose is to survive. If you zoom out in time and space, considering the Fermi paradox, humanity is in a "default dead" state. This would be true even if climate change, nuclear war, etc was off the table. This implies that humanities purpose is to survive, against all odds.
So, if someone is trying to kill you, survive. If they aren't (and I hope that is the case!), try to find ways to help humanity survive in a universe that, if nothing is done, will kill all of us and our descendants sooner rather than later.
Now, assuming that we figure it out, and spread life beyond Earth in a sustainable way (which includes making Earth life sustainable), our descendants can address the question of purpose more fully. But until then, our only reasonable purpose is to give them the chance to ask.
> There is only one formula for healthy and refreshing sleep: Go to sleep only when you are very tired. Not earlier. Not later. Wake up naturally without an alarm clock.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
I loved every minute of my time working at Netflix. Great, talented coworkers who I could constantly learn from, management chain from bottom to top of former engineers, so they understood when you would say, "I worked on this for a week but have no results because it didn't work". Plenty of resources to do what you needed to do, and lots of autonomy to do what you thought was right. Very little process and upper management actively moved to eliminate what little process there was. Unlimited vacation time that was real -- management took long vacations to set an example and would actively encourage everyone to do the same. And of course a great paycheck which included 10%+ raises because they made sure that new people didn't make more than veterans.
I'll be the first to admit it's not for everyone. As they say, they are a sports team, not a family. Perform well and be rewarded handsomely, perform poorly and get cut with a big check. I personally thrived in that kind of environment, where you always have to keep proving your value. But not everyone wants to work that way.
* A loading phase where I immerse into the problem. This requires silence and concentration. Basically staring at the problem and its various aspects for a few hours. Hmm. What if? No. But maybe. Nope. Hmm. Hmm. The problem will often seem too big to fit in my head. I can sort of fumble and grasp its outline, but I don't see it clearly.
* A background processing phase, this requires a sense of almost boredom. I need to step away from the keyboard. A disengagement from further input, from intellectual stimuli in general. I can't distract myself with entertainment either. I must be a bit bored.
* All the sudden there will be clarity, deep insight into what needs to be created. Like the microwave going bing, signalling the cooking is ready. I'll solve not only one problem, but half a dozen. The solutions come faster than I can implement them. I need to pace myself and write my ideas down before I implement them.
It's a heck of a ride.