Motivation and Wandering

Today I pathetically characterised myself as a rōnin.  Rather than being "masterless" though I'm a bit more directionless.  I've noticed I don't have any specific long term plans at this point, just vague ideas.

Having a long term plan helps add momentum to pursuits in the short term.  I suppose I am stuck in the present and blind to the future.

I can list nominal long term goals that I have, but if I'm honest I don't feel them as I used to.

• work for an open source-positive company
• work on a significant project
• work for myself on my own projects
• complete a language-based project (like story generation or a personal assistant (Siri's got me beat there))
• travel and work, living in many countries over the next few decades (which can be compatible with working with a single company, given opportunities to work remotely)
• living near nature (in a cabin in some woods with a ½ walk to the nearest village/civilisation)

I still love the idea of them, but if I'm honest, I'm a bit fatigued of looking at a computer all day, and there are other needs in my life that need meeting before I can really invest myself in those again.

However, I still want to respect those I currently work with.  My thesis supervisor has been wonderful to me and he deserves a wonderful student, the professor for my last Master's course is wonderful and so is the course and it deserves a fair amount of effort (but not an Übermensch one :), and I gave my Google Summer of Code mentor a big enough headache at the end of last summer, and I just want to delight him now.  So I need to build greater motivation, even while I only see fog when looking into the future.

So, school and work are going OK, but they could go better.  Let's see some more enthusiasm here!  Even masterless rōnin have goals. :)