Taking a Break

I'm going to take a break from this blog for a while. I honestly don't know whether or not I'll come back to it, but I think it's done its job for me for now. The articles I've explored so far give a pretty good idea of the breadth of my interest and comprehension, at least along the lines of empirical research. 

The most challenging aspect is finding articles I want to approach this way, especially for the more human-centered fields. I think maybe with natural science I'm perfectly happy looking at how this or that specific organism reacts to this or that specific situation, but with human-centered fields, I'm more interested in theories with broader strokes that don't lend themselves so well to this kind of blog. At the same time, I do feel like more research is needed, but maybe the kind of research I'm interested in isn't being done. 

This could be a demand-avoidance thing, but I feel like much of the research on humans carries a bit of prescriptivism - a sense of let's see how to make people have the outcomes we want. Sort of along the lines of if people aren't prioritizing what we think they should prioritize, how do we change that, instead of how do we help people do what they themselves want, even if that's something that changes? And I'm not necessarily saying that kind of research doesn't exist, but it's hard to find. 

I'm trying to make a career change, and part of my idea was that this blog would be good practice and would showcase some of what I can do. That's true as far as it goes, but I think my intrinsic motivation has run out for now - I think I'd be happy to do this kind of work for pay, but as a hobby, it's starting to feel too much like an obligation. Thanks to everyone that's taken the time to read over the past several months!