Friends of mine in neuroscience, who do electrophysiology, love the instantaneous gratification of it: patch onto a cell. Watch/listen to it fire. Treat it with chemicals. Treat the cells innervating it with chemicals. Make them fire with external electrodes. Etc. Do this multiple times, over a period of months/years, until you have dissected some local circuitry properties. Pretty cool, if you get off on listening to neurons fire, day in and day out.
I think the key in science is to do something that is interesting and pleasurable in both the long and short term. My electrophysiologist friends like it day-to-day, and also like the long term agenda of it. Sounds like you liked the long-term agenda of biochemistry, but not the day-to-day.
Probably similar lessons apply to hacking. For me, I got out of it: I didn't like how I felt after looking at a glowing monitor for 12+ hours a day, week after week. I like programming this intensively when I feel like it, but not when I'm pressured to do so for some business goal.
"I think the key in science is to do something that is interesting and pleasurable in both the long and short term."
I discovered that this (the hard way, after a decade buildng enterprise software) is true for software dev too. Now I do algorithm intensive work and there's more to do than I have time in this lifetime to do.
I think the key in science is to do something that is interesting and pleasurable in both the long and short term. My electrophysiologist friends like it day-to-day, and also like the long term agenda of it. Sounds like you liked the long-term agenda of biochemistry, but not the day-to-day.
Probably similar lessons apply to hacking. For me, I got out of it: I didn't like how I felt after looking at a glowing monitor for 12+ hours a day, week after week. I like programming this intensively when I feel like it, but not when I'm pressured to do so for some business goal.