I work as a full-time software engineer, I wake up at 7am and rush through my morning routine (shower, breakfast, pack my computer) in order to arrive work at 9am. Then I sit, and spend all my day in front of a computer, writing code I'm not happy with because I have a deadline. At 7pm, I commute back to my apartment, 2 hours of traffic, dinner, sleep, and finally another day.
While I work, in order to avoid my reality, I Imagine myself being an intergalactic secret agent, fighting crime around space, dancing to celebrate another great day. For a moment, I feel happy.
That's the story I told in one exercise I perform in my drama class a few years ago. I was starting my software engineer degree, and for some reason, I imagined my life being like that.
It's terrifying to think that humans spend their entire life working to live. It's like somehow, we've got a debt that can only be paid by working awful jobs, until we die. This might sound like a lie for some of you, but it is the reality that the majority of people live.
Unfortunately, in order to survive, we need to make money. It's the rule some crazy human once established. In most cases, this means working for a job you don't like for the rest of your life.
How can we play by the rule and avoid the sadness of the story I told before at the same time?
To answer that question, I'm going to introduce the concepts of infinite and finite and how they can help us. I learnt them last year in Migala's video ¿Qué vas a hacer de tu vida?, and I've been working with this in my life and photography.
Finite
Look at yourself, imagine you're divided in two pieces, one of the two parts you see is your finite you. This is the you who is what society expects you to be. A successful person with a nice job, a brand new card, a home, etc. That is also the part of you who lives in auto pilot, the part who thinks that with more money comes more happiness.
Infinite
The infinite part of you, is the one who is what you want to be, it's your true you. Is the part that imagine yourself being an intergalactic secret agent. The infinite doesn't care about money.
Balance
Thinking of finite and infinite is like a black and white picture. Too much of something is bad, and even in a very contrasty black and white picture, you can still see the grays.
If you let the finite win, you're going to be successful, but at what price? having money doesn't give you happiness, and you're much likely gonna end like the protagonist of the initial story.
On the other hand, if you let the infinite win, you're breaking the rule, and at the end, it will bring you sadness as well.
How to create balance then?
Explore
The answer is not in a youtube video, or a blog. The answer is out there, you need yo get out and explore. Do the things that you find interesting, maybe you won't like them, but maybe you will.
Let the infinite guide you for a while. Sooner or later, you're gonna find yourself thriving with the things you're doing.
Sounds easy right? Well, it isn't. Not everyone has the same possibilities to just do things. Maybe you don't have enough time, or money. Me for example, It's been 5 years since I started making photography, and I'm still using my cellphone to take pictures, because I haven't been able to buy a camera.
Be honest with yourself, and do your best.
Follow the rule
If you're lucky, the infinite is gonna show you a set of things that you enjoy, that make you feel present, that you would do all your live and not get tired of.
This is when you need to start thinking finite again, which of this things has the potential to give you enough money to have a good life? It doesn't have to be millions, it just have to be enough.
This answer is not easy either, it might take more time than you expected to get there, but once you have it, focus on it.
Life is hard, keep going
In a world dominated by the finite, loosing the infinite is easy. And even if you find a way to live out of something you like, you're gonna find yourself constantly fighting the finite. There are going to be times when you feel like your finite part has taken control, this is why is important to be connected with your infinite part, learn to listen to it.
Let both sides have their own time, but don't let any of them take full control.
Make your own way
If for some reason, you decide to follow this philosophy, don't take it as a magical solution. Instead, interpret it as a guide to find your own answers, your own way.
For me, I have found my way through a combination of photography and software. As I see it, software represents my finite and photography my infinite, each side with its own role to feed the other side.
Software is my way to make money to create art. It has the potential to give me a good life, and to pay for the things I wanna create with my photography. It might sound like I hate working with software, and I'm doing it just to survive, but that's not the case. I actually enjoy creating software, but I cannot deny that it has a big finite nature and it could easily lead me to darkness.
This is where photography comes in scene, it plays an important role because it keeps me connected to my infinite, allowing me to avoid burnouts and letting me know when my finite is taking too much control. Photography is my way to scape, to clear my mind, and thanks to it, I can create better software.
With this combination, I am able to balance the infinite.