[14:21]<Laura> That's really sad, you know. (Sent AutoReply)
[14:21]<Laura> And under the influence of alcohol myself, I have to say that it's reasons like this that I wish you'd done something more artsy.
[14:21]<Laura> I mean, it sounds horribly cliche, but I think you have the soul of an artist. Or whatever you want to call it. You need passion as much as any of us do; that's what sets us apart, after all.
[14:21]<Laura> You're good at what you do, and I'm not saying that you should stop doing it. It's just that... I don't know. I can't think of a way to say it that doesn't sound horrible and cliche.
[14:21]<Laura> So I'll just stop sending you myriad messages.

All of this really is interesting to me, because I've long debated it myself, and it is good to hear Laura try to articulate her own doubts. I feel that even though I'm doing Engineering, and have had my ass handed to me on a silver platter by the mathematics, that there is still enough creativity in what I do that I can enjoy myself. The entire reason I don't have a job this summer is because I realised I was no longer going to "settle" for a job that didn't offer me creative outlets... if I can't find something even mildly creative (insofar as at least giving me design control, if not entirely a creative environment), then I'd rather not do anything. UPS about killed me. I felt oppressed and drowning in a sea of both futulity and mindless uncreativity. The environment there was almost completely "anti-creative"; creating new things and coming up with novel new idas was blasphemy. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and all that bullshit. The only reason I didn't go insane was that I wrote Meta-War, reread The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, read the newspaper, and did the "Wonderword" and "Jumbles" in between those "fifteen minutes" of real work each day.