There's a new series of Love & Robots coming to Netflix tomorrow, and while I've found both previous series somewhat hit and miss, the episode Zima Blue has stayed with me (someone here later told me it was based on an Alastair Reynolds story which I'd never even thought to google). I won't spoil the episode, but it powerfully captures for me something that has happened a few times in my life (heck, even now if I'm brutally honest): you're excited by some new hobby or opportunity, it almost instantly brings you floods of energy and creativity, maybe even public acclaim, and so you throw yourself into it. You spend more time on it, make a career out of it. That career blossoms, maybe you're running a business inspired by your former hobby. Except now you're not really doing your hobby anymore. You're in meetings, helping make a decision that helps the people who help the people who help the people who do the hobby. Sometimes your knowledge and enthusiasm for the hobby help you make better decisions, but you still find yourself wondering, 'what happened?' How did this thing that brought you so much joy stop being fun?

Framing that initial creative energy as "entrepreneurial" is a trap, and I see parallels in talk of the "growth mindset". The professionalisation and exploitation of the things that bring you joy, the mantra to "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life", it all sets you on a path. You have to understand that that path is invariably _away_ from the thing you love. Remember the first time you played with a computer? The first time you wrote code, however dumb? Did you dream of one day working on enterprise middleware or whatever back then? The world demands that we put away childish things, and let's be honest, society benefits from us being productive adults.

But if something brings you joy, I think you should guard it extremely jealously. Separate it from your livelihood. If you want to go change the world, if you feel you have a mission, then fine, pursue it. But it's very rare that you'll still be sprinting when you cross the finish line.