Someone on Twitter - ähm X - said something like “Write on Twitter for 2 years and see what happens.” I was reading a little, while thinking about cancelling my Twitter account. I was using it to be informed about CAD (Connected Automated Driving) topics, events and topics. I am not good in using those social media, and after my retirement I thought, I should stop this.
And suddenly I stumbled upon this sentence.
“Twitter for 2 years and see what happens.”
OK then. Why not give Twitter a try?
Yes, but about what should I twitter? My first tweet was accordingly. My duck feet. And of course nobody was interested in. And still. As of today, I just have 57 followers. Because I do not have the one interesting topic to talk about. I am not interested in gaining followers. Why should I? I have nothing to sell.
I was always interested in exploring new ideas, not really in bringing those good ideas to a final launch. So, my challenge was to find an idea I really would like to follow through.
Is Scientic Writing For Me?
Today I am retired. I do not need to work anymore, but I do need a task, a project.
The last 2 years of my life as an employer I was doing business analysis in the area of CAD (Connected Automated Driving), and inspired by this very interesting role, I dived deep into the requirements to learn a new profession like Scientific Writing. There are so many highly interesting areas to explore!
But again - would I be interested to specialize and do this for the next 10 years? Each topic I am interested in bores me after a while. Would I keep my interest in CAD? I am not so sure.
It is not always the topic itself, but often the people I need to deal with. As an example, I have been working as a freelancer with building websites, just because I wanted to do something else than just being an Excel formsheet filling Product Manager with fulltime employment.
My life as Product Manager for Space Components was desirable above average - I was travelling all over Europe, my customers werde adorable - all important European space industries. I still love the spirit in this industry. I did not love the spirit in media industry. Not at all, and I desperately wanted my “old space folks” back.
Back to Scientific Writing - I love to bumble along, do mistakes, being wrong, finding out the right path. I do not like feeling stupid, but I like the fact that I am allowed to be stupid and ask questions. This is one of my inherent virtues. And late in my life I learnt that living along with the four main character strengths makes really happy. (But that’ another story >> VIA Survey of Character Strenghts).
And Then I Stumbled Upon #NoCode
Three years ago I tried - again - to learn another programming language, Python. One of my passions is to do research on a new subject. And back then I was so fascinated by Big Data and Machine Learning potential, made an introductory course at Coursera, was also trying to convince my seniors to invest in to these fields.
At that time I had a role as Innovation Manager. Only that the company was not very innovative. Really, the new CEO was proposing to introduce a letterbox for Improvement Suggestion (no, not a democratic software tool). Of course there was no resonance on these weird ideas.
And- I did not really find pleasure in programming. These examples were always so - hmm - nerdy. Often I did not understand the value. There were use cases I would not resonate with. And I could not imagine how many years I would need to try and try until I could do something interesting.
And while I was reading on Twitter and researching my what-shall-I-do-with-the-rest-of-my-life-ideas (
1001 Tage), I stumbled upon #NoCode. What an epiphany! Sooo many ideas rolling through my brains, and now, maybe I could make them happen? I could build myself?
What Apps Will I BUILD? Ideation Phase
From then on I was in idea fever. What app would I ike to build? Which topics should I turn over and over? Could I just build apps and then sell them (Oh, I am still sooo naive).
What Will I Give Up?
Now, I needed to give up on something. Since 2011 I had the dream of writing a bestseller. I always thought “I could do that, too”, when I was reading Michael Crichton’s “Jurassic Park” and Frank Schätzing’s “The Swarm”. Well, after two courses on novel writing and several books guiding me through the plotting, I came to the character building part.
And there I failed.
One of my teachers told us that we need to be psychologically far beyond some of our traumata, otherwise we were not able to develop solid characters with depth and conflict potential that would make them interesting.
And while I was inventing my characters, I always found myself mirroring some aspects of people I knew. Bur unfortunately I dived deep into these old feelings, could not sleep anymore and was whirling and spinning around in old feelings I did not really like.
Finally, after some weeks I realized that maybe I could write a science thriller (I still think, the plot is good), but after that I would be exhausted beyond measure. It would not work to write some hours per day and afterwards do some nice Zumba or eGym in the studio.
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