The heuristic of trying to work on what you genuinely love is not helpful or practical for most people. It sounds good, but it is just a platitude.
Genuine love and fake love feel and look pretty similar. Most people naturally start loving the life they live in, if it is generally positive. Then, they make up a self-affirming, coherent narrative that justifies their emotions, decisions, and interests. If you do an AI startup, life goes well for you, and you embrace that decision and life, how can you differentiate whether it was really a genuine interest or not?
Cal Newport makes the good point that people learn to like/love things after they get very good at it, whatever “it” is.
I love Joseph Campbell but his advice to his students to “follow their bliss” may not always be optimal.
I read the AI book “Mind Inside Matter” in the late 1970s, and even though I have done a ton of non-AI architecture and software development, I have also been able to work on AI problems like knowledge representation, expert system, NLP, neural networks, and deep learning starting in 1982. I definitely followed my bliss, but I have never been world class in my profession, but I have enjoyed myself.
> Most people naturally start loving the life they live in, if it is generally positive.
The platitude is directed toward those living a life they feel is negative, but who slog through for whatever reason: fear of change, obligation to other people, etc.
Taken as feel-good, head-in-the-sand optimism, of course it's facile advice.
But imo there is genuine wisdom in it, and it's this: You are much more likely to do something well, and to continue to do it until you reach a high-level of expertise, if you don't have to force yourself to do it. People who naturally love working out are more likely to be fit. That's what the heuristic is.
